Informational

Title: How Much is a Million

Author: David M. Schwartz

Illustrator: Steven Kellogg

Publisher: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books

Copyright date: 1985

Number of pages: 40 pages

Awards: ALA Notable book, a Reading Rainbow Feature Selection, and a Boston Globe/ Horn Book Honor book for illustrations

Genre: Informational, math, children’s literature

Brief summary: How Much is a Million knocks complex numbers down to size in a fun and engaging way. This book helps children conceptualize big numbers!

Author’s Website: http://www.stevenkellogg.com/page3.html

Cover:

·         Is the cover attractive?  Yes. It is magical!

Story:

·         Are the stories interesting to children? Yes. These big numbers are hard for kids to comprehend and wrap their heads around, so this book does a spectacular job of putting it into context and helping kids imagine just how big these numbers are.

Organization:

·         Do the spacing and placement of the words make the passages easy to read? Yes. The author does a wonderful job of helping kids experience the awe of big numbers. The author realized that we often hear big numbers, but don’t really know what they mean.

Characters:

·         Do characters represent people from a variety of cultural groups? No. There is no character development in this book.

·         Are females as well as males depicted in leadership roles? No. The leader of this book is a male wizard and he is the only one who leads the reader through the book.

Themes:

·         Does the story offer children a variety of things to think about, to question, and to consider? Although it may not be feasible to count a million of something, we can imagine a million through skills of estimation and mathematical reasoning, as displayed in this book.

·         Are there lessons to be learned? Yes. Large numbers, estimation, and mathematical reasoning are all lessons that are derived from this book. There is no story development, so this book lacks a theme.

Settings:

·         Do the stories reflect a variety of settings? Yes. The wizard takes us on an adventure exploring big numbers in different scenarios.

Illustrations:

·         Are diverse populations represented in the illustrations? Yes. There is a variety of populations represented in the illustrations.

·         Are the illustrations large, clear and bright? The stunning artwork renders concepts into improbable and entertaining visions, which helps students to demystify huge numbers like a million, trillion and billion.

·         Do the illustrations invite the reader to explore the text? Yes. The Illustrations and text in this book help the reader visualize who much a million, billion and trillion really are.

·         Do the illustrations explain and enhance the context? Yes. The illustrations are spectacular! They put the numbers into context and almost makes the concepts tangible!

Other Considerations:

·         Will the stories encourage discussions? Yes. Students can think about what things are logically sorted by millions. This can be built to by discussing things that come in 2’s, half dozens, dozens ect. Also, by simply viewing the pictures, students will begin to realize what numbers could be checked and which could likely be impossible to verify. This brings about the discussion of estimation and why it is useful when thinking about very large numbers, such as a million, billion and trillion. They will likely also think about what they can do in a second, minute, and hour. Several experiments can be conducted at school to study these time frames.

·         Are the stories age appropriate to ensure children can understand what is presented? Yes. This story enhances student understanding of giant numbers. Even though these numbers are difficult to comprehend, this book makes it so the reader can visualize just how much millions, billions, and trillions are.

 

Reading level scale

7	highly difficult
6	difficult
5	moderately difficult
4	Challenging
3	above average
2	Average  (5-10 year old readers)
1	highly readable

Despite the fact that this book is over 25 years old, it has a lasting appeal and is a great mathematical picture book!  

My Rating: 5/5! Excellent book! 

classroom application:
Continual activity: Marvelosissimo used calendars to represent years. We could make a class calendar for the entire school year by using oversized paper so there is plenty of room for students to write in the squares. Students take responsibility for daily recording of news and events in the squares. At the end of the month, students can be responsible for making a picture that summarizes the month. The teacher can bind the calendar pages with a spiral at the top to make the calendar into a big book.

A great social studies integration could be having the students study different things that are grouped by millions, such as population, money, land area etc. Each group will be assigned a specific category and gather research on it, reporting on it at the end. An example could be having students find cities in the United States or other nations that have populations in the millions. The students would work in their group to use almanacs to identify 10 such cities, ordering them in size with the smallest first.

Students will play the Bull’s Eye Game. To play, students will be divided into pairs. They will get a sheet of paper that has a large bull’s-eye on it. The inside circle will be labeled million, the next outer circle will be labeled thousands, followed by hundreds, tens and ones as the most outer circle. The group members will take turns pitching  paperclips at the bulls eye, recording their score by adding up the numbers. The students will first use expanded notation, then write the number. If the students have difficulty adding their numbers, they will be provide their place value houses.