NONFICTION

Big as a Giant Snail

by Jess Keating (text) & illus. by David DeGrand
Knopf. (World of Weird Animals). Nov. 2021. 48p. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9780593300848.
COPY ISBN
K-Gr 3–Keating and DeGrand present awe-inspiring critters who defy readers’ expectations about size. According to a funny, helpful scale, the snail on the cover is one banana long, but children will groan over the picture of it resting on someone’s palm, or maybe delight in it. The blue whale is 200 bananas long, and a moose can be 14 bananas high, towering over humans at 10 feet tall. In this highly accessible book, the photos use cars as a scale, comic inset drawings to hammer home points, and fonts of different colors and sizes to keep things moving along. The facts are given in sidebars, while back matter includes an accessible glossary and a reiteration of scale for understanding—that atlas moth is the size of a dinner plate!
VERDICT This work fits into so many lessons, from endangered species to climate change and habitat preservation, that’s it’s hard to imagine a collection that would not benefit from having it on its shelves. Funny, fast-paced, and full of information.
Reviewed by Kimberly Olson Fakih , Jan 01, 2022

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