Just the Right Size: Why Big Animals are Big and Little Animals are Little (2009) by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Neal Layton.

Entertainment for kids is full of scientifically impossible ideas: superheros who can lift buses, climb walls, fly through the air and fight giant spiders or other creepy crawlies.

Nicola Davies sets them right with this book and the BTLT (Big Thing Little Thing) rule: “If you DOUBLE the length of something, its surface area and cross section go up FOUR times, while its volume and weight go up EIGHT times.”

For the very teeniest fliers, such as insects as small as one of these letters, takeoff is easy. A puff of wind on their wings is enough to get them airborne. But because of the BTLT rule, flying gets harder the bigger you get.

If you could take an insect and make it twice as big, its outside (or surface area) would get four times bigger, which means its wings would also get four times bigger. Its muscles, too, would be four times thicker and so four times as strong… This would be fine if the insect were just four times heavier, but because of the BTLT rule, it would weigh EIGHT times more. So it wouldn’t be able to take off unless its wings and muscles were much, much bigger.

Each page takes on a different facet of the BTLT rule. There are illustrations of how big our feet would have to be to skate on the water like a water strider (really big) or how big and hairy our toes would have to be to walk on walls like a gecko (like basketballs). There are pages on why a blue whale is probably the biggest animal there will ever be and how lungs with bigger and bigger surface areas for getting oxygen were the key for reptiles, birds and mammals to get bigger than a bug. 

Just the Right Size is so full of interesting science I hardly want to admit to my one quibble. It’s the size of the book. At just 6 x 9.5 inches, it’s too small for the visuals to pack in as much information as the text. That aspect seems like a lost opportunity with a book as good as this. 

How Much is a Million? (1985) by David M. Schwartz, illustrated by Steven Kellogg. 

I’m finishing up this year of kids book blogging with a bunch of math picture books. How Much is a Million? is one of the classics.

Our guide is Marvelosissimo the Mathematical Magician who shows kids how big a million actually is with lots of concrete illustrations: kids standing on each other’s shoulders higher than airplanes fly, kids counting from 1-1,000,000 for 23 days, taking a million goldfish bowls and putting them together to make one big enough for a whale. 

Then Marvelosissimo moves on to ask, “How big is a billion?” and “How tremendous is a trillion?” 

Kids (and adults) use a million, billion and trillion almost interchangeably. After reading this book and seeing the differences illustrated so clearly by Steven Kellogg, they should be officially set right, even a little awed by how mind-bogglingly big these numbers are. Just right for discussions of the world’s population, the age of the earth and universe, how much billionaires actually have, deficit spending, and all the hot topics with kids. 

Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar (1983) by Masaichiro and Mistumasa Anno.

“This story is about one jar and what was inside it.”

There was water in the jar…The rippling water became a wide, deep sea. 

On the sea was 1 island.

On the island there were 2 countries.

Within each country there were 3 mountains. 

On each mountain there were 4 walled kingdoms…

And through the pages of this book, kids visually learn about factorials and just how big these kinds of problems can grow to be. 

Such a simple set up for kids to grasp. So concrete with Mitsumasa Anno’s beautiful signature illustrations. Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar is an absolute stand out when it comes to math picture books. An excellent choice to geek out with your kids on the power of numbers. 

The reason why there aren’t more books on math for kids of this caliber remains a question to be answered. 

Amazing Faces (2010) poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by Chris Soentpiet. 

Lee Bennett Hopkins is a poet himself with many publications under his belt. This book covers a whole range of experiences. We move from Chinatown to the wide open dessert to how it feels to be left out to transracial adoption and more with poems by Nikki Grimes, Jane Yolen, Pat Mora, Janet S. Wong and others. 

To get a peek at how Chris Soetpiet creates his artwork, check out his website here. 

Come See the Earth Turn: The Story of Leon Foucault (2010) by Lori Mortensen, illustrated Raul Allen.

Have you stopped to linger at one of those pendulums at your local natural history museum? You know, the one where they set up the pegs and they get knocked down at certain intervals? Well, did you know that you’ve seen proof that the earth is turning and that we owe this bit of elegant evidence to Leon Foucault? 

Neither did I. Until this book came my way. Lori Mortensen sets up the story as an underdog tale: Leon was small as a baby, slow in his elementary school classes, dropped out of medical school. But he had a knack for building things and getting things just right. An accidental discovery leads him to his proof that the earth spins on its axis. 

Then they saw it — the pendulum began swinging away from the line traced in the floor.

In an instant, the scientists knew: The pendulum wasn’t swinging in a different direction. The earth was rotating beneath it.

Leon Foucault, the frail, awkward boy, had proved that the earth turned.

Raul Allen has contributed lovely illustrations, sepia toned with an emphasis on gorgeous lighting.

Finally, a little quibble. The one thing that would push this over into an all-time favorite would be a simple explanation of the science behind the pendulum, and the scientific process of creating solid evidence to prove your hypothesis. The emphasis is on the history and there’s a missed opportunity to explain the scientific thinking behind this discovery. 

Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez (2003) by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Yuyi Morales. 

There is no doubt that Cesar Chavez is an inspiring man. This biography is great for kids because it focuses in on Chavez’s life as a child as well as his later successes as a union organizer. Yuyi Morales creates warm scenes in her artwork but also does not shy away from the struggles and violence the early campasinos faced. 

Here’s where the story begins:

Until Cesar Chavez was ten, every summer night was like a fiesta. Relatives swarmed onto the ranch for barbecues with watermelon, lemonade, and fresh corn. Cesar and his brothers, sisters, and cousins settled down to sleep outside, under netting to keep mosquitoes out. But who could sleep—with uncles and aunts singing, spinning ghost stories, and telling magical tales of life back in Mexico? 

Seeds (2005) text and pictures by Ken Robbins. 

Summer is the perfect laid-back time to do some little science explorations with your kids. This book can kick off the inquiry with clear pictures that give little ones a great introduction to the world of plants. So as you’re enjoying the summer days, make some guacamole, keep the seed and let it sprout on your window sill. 

Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci (2010) by Joseph D’Agnese, illustrated by John O’Brien. 

More math geek out. Fibonacci was a gifted mathematician. He’s also learned a lot as a merchants son living in northern Africa in the late 1100’s and basically brought Hindu-Arabic numbers to Europe along with a lot of other mathematical ideas. 

Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature (2010) by Sarah C. Campbell, photos by Sarah C. Campbell and Richard P. Campbell.

It’s summer and hopefully you’ve gotten out on some hikes, camping trips and the like. This little book can spark a mathematical quest as you tromp around in the great outdoors. Turns out Fibonacci numbers are everywhere in nature. What’s a Fibonacci number, you wonder? Check this out to get the skinny. 

I love geeking out on math. Geeking out on math in nature…? Priceless.