Reviewed by Nikki M Heath
How would one measure the ocean? It’s a difficult question for most adults, let alone children. Yet it’s a question tackled from almost every perspective in this rich non-fiction picture book.
There isn’t a narrative as such to this book, but the illustrations follow three children at the seaside as they grapple with the ocean’s many dimensions. The text explores all the different ways it is possible to consider the titular question: through the mathematics of volume, length, width, and depth, as well as geography, shape, inhabitants, time, and space.
The book cleverly introduces the concept of a formula and invites children to treat the book as a formula, swapping in concepts such as courage or love for ‘the ocean’ throughout the text. It also includes origami instructions for a paper boat and suggests more achievable measuring tasks for readers to tackle.
The illustrations are fully saturated and immersive, some full of detail, others focusing on character and connection. Together with the text, readers are encouraged to open their minds to the physical and philosophical questions that the ocean - and our attempts to measure it - poses.
This
book is a wonderful cross-curricular, interactive classroom resource for
kindergarten through middle primary, that just might challenge the adults as
much as the children.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Buzz Words Books would love to hear what you think.