What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew? (Wells of Knowledge Science Series) - Hardcover

Wells, Robert E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807588377 ISBN 13: 9780807588376

Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company, 1995

Synopsis

A pygmy shrew is small―it's among the littlest mammals! A ladybug is even smaller, but it hardly seems tiny when you compare it to a protozoa! And there are many things smaller still―so small that we can see them only with a microscope. Would you believe there are particles that are so tiny that we can't measure their exact size? Explore the huge world of the very small!

About this title

About the Author

Robert E. Wells is the author and illustrator of many intriguing and award-winning science books for children, including Can You Count to a Googol? and Why Do Elephants Need the Sun? He lives with his wife in Wenatchee, Washington.

From the Inside Flap

A pygmy shrew is among the tiniest of mammals. A ladybug is even smaller. But in this book you will find small things you could not ordinarily see.

Reviews

Grade 3-4?In this presentation that goes from small to infinitesimal, Wells compares the size of a tiny animal (a pygmy shrew) to an insect (a ladybug), which is in turn contrasted with one-celled animals, bacteria, molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles. Bright, colorful cartoons and a text that looks like hand lettering in a variety of fonts are jauntily arranged across the pages. Readers are encouraged to try to imagine being the sizes of the creatures under discussion. This lighthearted treatment is fine for the familiar, but begins to become confusing for a paramecium, an amoeba, and bacteria. Viruses are skipped as the narrative continues to include molecules, atoms, quarks, and electrons of the physical sciences instead of a parallel journey through diminishing sizes in the animal world to perhaps ovum, sperm, and DNA. The book has the look of an introduction for young readers. As the narrative continues, however, many terms are introduced, without pronunciation guides even in the two-page glossary, and the cartoon approach becomes cluttered and less effective.?Frances E. Millhouser, Reston Regional Library, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 6^-9. In Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? (1993), Wells used words and pictures to give young children an inkling of how big things can be. In his latest book, he reverses the concept to introduce smallness. A pygmy shrew looks small beside an elephant, but not when it's next to a ladybug. In turn, the ladybug looks enormous compared to a paramecium. Showing that even a single cell is not the smallest thing, Wells introduces molecules, atoms, electrons, and quarks. The acrylic-and-ink artwork includes touches of humor. Despite the inherent problems in illustrating what cannot be observed, Wells introduces a challenging concept in a way that will entertain and intrigue young children. Carolyn Phelan

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew?

By Robert E. Wells

ALBERT WHITMAN & Company

Copyright © 1995 Robert E. Wells
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8075-8837-6

CHAPTER 1

How small would you say that small really is? Is something you can hold in your hand, like a blueberry, small? How about a grain of sand?

Yes, it's true we could call those things small. But in this book, you'll find much, MUCH smaller things—things you cannot ordinarily see.

Unless, of course, you look through a MICROSCOPE.

An ordinary (optical) microscope bends light rays in a way that makes objects appear larger than they really are. With this you can see things you may not have known existed. You can discover, for example, that many tiny creatures live inside a single water drop. But did you know that there is a world of things too small to be seen with an ordinary microscope? To see these things, you need to use a much more powerful instrument-an electron microscope, which uses electrons rather than light rays to scan images. This is the kind that many scientists use.

The world of the Very Small is almost unbelievably tiny, and hard to imagine. But it's quite real. In fact, it's just as real as a blueberry.

Everyone knows you can stretch your mind by thinking big. Do you suppose it's also possible to stretch your mind by thinking small?

This is a PYGMY SHREW. From the end of her nose to the tip of her tail, she's only about 3 inches (7 ½ centimeters) long.

If you were a pygmy shew, you'd feel mighty small. Even some TOADS TOOLS would be taller than you!

If you happened to meet an ELEPHANT, you'd probably think you were the smallest thing in the UNIVERSE!

Compared to an elephant, the largest land mammal, she looks very small indeed.

But pygmy shrew, you're not so small. Not compared to a LADY BUG.

Lady bugs are a kind of beetle, and beetles are just one of the many kinds of insects. Pygmy shrews are insect eaters, but they prefer to leave lady bugs alone. They know that lady bugs have a bitter taste!

(Continues...)

Excerpted from What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew? by Robert E. Wells. Copyright © 1995 Robert E. Wells. Excerpted by permission of ALBERT WHITMAN & Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807588377
• ISBN 13: 9780807588376
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Wells Robert E.
• Number of pages: 32