If

June 15, 2014
Continuing his exploration of the mind-expanding possibilities of scale modeling, Smith extends the premise of If America Were a Village (2009) to encompass life, time and the universe.Following a well-taken note that his comparisons are mostly approximations, the author proposes thinking of Earth's life span as a month, all wealth as 100 coins and 14 similar transformations designed to make incomprehensibly huge numbers or measurements at least theoretically graspable. The trick doesn't always work ("If the Milky Way galaxy were shrunk to the size of a dinner plate...," the visible universe "would be about the size of Belgium"), but it does offer readers a chance to think of time, for instance, in terms of days or minutes instead of millions of years. Better yet, Adams' painted infographics offer literal visualizations of the planets as balls of different sizes, of where inventions from fire to smartphones would lie relative to one another along a ruler or tape measure, and how many "slices" of our life are consumed in sleeping-if our life were a pizza. In a closing note addressed to adults, the author suggests further scaling and numeracy-building exercises.If this book were a pizza, young readers would gobble down every slice-and demand more for dessert. (Informational picture book. 7-10)

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August 1, 2014

Gr 2-5-Following in the footsteps of his If America Were a Village (2009) and If the World Were a Village (2011, both Kids Can), Smith again scales down large concepts and numbers for young readers with a focus on worldly concepts. Topics ranging from our galaxy, solar system, world history, inventions, world population, and energy and food production are related to familiar everyday objects, so children can easily grasp the relationship between these big ideas. For instance: if all of Earth's water was represented by 100 drinking glasses, 97 glasses would be filled with salt water, while only three would be filled with fresh water. Only one of the three is accessible, as the remaining two would be found in glaciers, frozen in the atmosphere, or deep underground. Adams's beautiful illustrations, reminiscent of folk art, vividly portray the concepts but may occasionally lead to some confusion. When presenting world life expectancy as footprints in the sand, the illustration makes it seem as though North Americans live the longest at 78 years (with 78 footprints), but only when reading the side panel is it stated that residents of some countries would have 83 footprints. Furthermore, Smith's time lines are brief and may overlook events some find most relevant (for instance, he doesn't include the automobile on the time line of Inventions of the Last 1000 Years). An author's note provides suggestions for additional scale activities, and a list of useful books and websites can be found as well. Overall, the text serves as an excellent discussion starter and bridge to comprehending big concepts. A solid suggestion for fact-focused young readers.-Meaghan Darling, Plainsboro Public Library, NJ

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014
Grades 3-6 Understanding really big numbers and measurements becomes accessible through Smith's cogent use of scale and analogies. The size of the solar system, geologic history, the speed of invention, and other matters that typically are discussed with billions, millions, and other hard-to-visualize grandeur begin to make sense when represented in dinner plates, along a tape measure, plotted on a single calendar month, or divided among slices of a giant pizza. Adams' colorful and expressive full-page paintings show exactly what Smith suggests with words, with embellishments in the forms of rocket ships, whales, and in one of the most compelling visual representations, various footprints in the sand showing relative life expectancies by continent. An afterword addressing teachers and parents, by the author, contextualizes the use of scale in the classroom, and the resources offered give immediate next places to explore for deeper understanding. For kids who have outgrown Aliki's nonfiction and aren't quite ready for number explorations in Tom Jackson's 100 Ponderables series, this is absorbing and informative.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)