Product Description

This book reveals how big a bowl would be needed to hold a million goldfish, or how many years it would take to count to a million. Author's note about each calculation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3362923 in Books
• Published on: 1994-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 40 pages

From Scientific American
An attempt to help children conceptualize the immensity of numbers is aided immeasurably by the artist's jovial, detailed, whimsical illustrations. Marvelosissimo the Mathematical Magician demonstrates the meaning of a million by showing his four young friends (plus two cats, a dog, and a unicorn) that it would take twenty-three days to even count to a million and that a goldfish bowl large enough to hold a million goldfish could hold a whale. Seven pages are printed with tiny white stars on a grid pattern against a blue sky -- adding up to only one hundred thousand stars! And after that, a billion and a trillion are discussed, all with equally or even more outstanding examples; a trillion children standing on each other's shoulders would almost reach to the rings of Saturn. The author concludes with several pages of the mathematical calculations which support his examples, very clearly and humorously explained. An unusual idea, smoothly and amusingly presented.

Review
Aside from being great fun, and it is, this book leads the viewer to conceptualize what at first seems inconceivable, no mean feat. A jubilant, original picture book. -- Booklist, June 15, 1985

Children are often intrigued by or confused about (sometimes both) very large numbers. Here Schwartz uses concepts that are simple to help readers conceptualize astronomical numbers like a million, billion, and trillion.

Examples: If a million children climbed on each other's shoulders, they would reach higher into the sky than airplanes can fly; if a billion of them made a human tower, it would reach past the moon. Some of the concepts can best be understood if there is previous knowledge (like the distance to the moon) but this is on the whole a successful effort. Extensive notes in small print seem addressed to adults. Kellogg's bouncy, vibrant pictures, however, are colorful and funny and indubitably addressed to children. -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, July-August 1985

Steven Kellogg['s] elements are play, story, detail, and exaggeration. These exuberant gifts give an electrical charge to David M. Schwartz's examination of the other end of the counting spectrum, the realm of huge numbers explored in How Much Is a Million? (Lothrop). Kellogg has created a whole adventure in pictures which faithfully interpret while expanding the text. Take a look at Marvelosissimo the Mathematical Magician starting his young friends on the wildly improbable task of counting to one trillion, a task which is to take two hundred thousand years. The dismal outcome is foreseen in the lower frame of the picture. All of the cast of characters in the upper frame will be long dead, from the unicorn, Moonbeam, to the Magician him self, not to mention Robert, Grace, Elena, and Sandro. Their gravestones stand in a row, inscribed with their names and images and decorated by the stars which are a continuing motif throughout the book. The tree is gone; night has fallen. So preposterous, but not sad; it is funny and also awesome. Furthermore it is true, as Schwartz's careful calculations at the end of the book demonstrate. Games and nonsense are frequently the delight of mathematicians, their proofs incontrovertible. Enjoy the heavy pyramid of calendar boxes, the wizard's pointed hat and long white beard, Sandro's body extruding from the frame of the upper picture. The art is solid, busy, loaded with narrative. Feel the serenity of the ages in the night scene below. Kellogg's game-playing, his affection, his gusto burst out of this page and send the viewer's imagination soaring. -- Horn Book, May/June 1988

About the Author
In His Own Words...

"When I was growing up, the smallest and the largest things in the universe fascinated me most. Compared with them, I could be both a giant and a dwarf at the same time!

"When I peered through a microscope to view water from a nearby pond or blood extracted from my own finger, I was transported mentally to wonderful worlds of hidden life. When I looked through a telescope at heavenly bodies, I took marvelous mental journeys into space.

"I also took real journeys on my bicycle almost every day. To occupy my mind during long rides, I liked to calculate how long it would take to ride a magical bicycle all the way around the Earth... or Jupiter.. or all the way to the Moon... or to the Sun... or to a distant star. Could anybody count the trillions of stars, I wondered, and if so, how long would it take? I wanted to understand numbers like million, billion, and trillion-not just to know what they were, but to have a feel for what they meant. I found it impossible to comprehend huge distances like 93 million miles (the distance to the Sun) but it was fun to try.

"I once estimated how many books were in my town's public library, and then I told myself, "With so many books, surely I could write just one!" But I never tried until many years later. I studied biology at Cornell University, and became an elementary school teacher. One night I peered upward at a clear sky studded with stars, and all the wonder and excitement I had experienced as a child came flooding back.

"That night I decided to try to write a book that would boggle children's minds the way mine had been boggled when I contemplated the heavens and the large numbers used to describe them. The result was my first book, How Much Is A Million?

"In addition to writing children's books, I write magazine articles for adults. I am especially interested in nature and environmental issues; I now watch birds and bugs as much as stars! Being a writer enables me to learn about a wide range of subjects, from soda fountains and architecture to folk dancing and butterflies, Sometimes I get to visit fascinating places, like the rain forests of South America where I did research for an article about an endangered tribe of indigenous people struggling bravely to save their rain forest home. That trip also led to my book, Yanomami: People of the Amazon.

"I grew up on Long Island, lived in New England for 20 years, and I recently moved to northern California. When I'm not writing or researching books and articles, I am likely to be outdoors, enjoying the activities I have always loved: walking and bicycling, watching birds and gazing at the stars. They still boggle my mind!"

Customer Reviews

How Much Is A Million?
Our class liked this book. We thought it was hilarious and gave a wonderful picture of how much a million really is. The kid tower was very imaginative and was an excellent example of a million, billion, and trillion. David M. Schwartz has a fantastic imagination. This book is great for little kids, because it shows there are numbers greater than a hundred. It's language is easy for kids to understand, and it contains many amazing facts.
However, older students dislike it, because it was too fictional. We felt it didn't explain these concepts well enough for us. Overall, we wouldn't recommend it for grades higher than fourth grade.

Helped spark a lifetime love of math
I'm currently a college student, majoring in Mathematics.

I clearly remember this book, and the sequel by the same author, as huge parts of my childhood love for the subject. Its clear and innovative style helped spark in me a deep love of mathematics. I still imagine big numbers as fields of stars and lines of kids holding fishbowls.

This is perfect for any child, it gives potentially abstract and boring numbers a proper sense of wonder. I can't reccomend it enough.

A fantastic book (for teaching more than you might think)
I have used this book countless times for teaching new speakers of English our big numbers. It is also wonderful for young gifted children who are able to grasp these concepts perhaps sooner than their age-mates. The most creative use I've heard of came from a teacher who had borrowed my copy but then asked to keep it a little longer because she wanted to be able to give her middle-school students an idea of the enormity of the Holocaust.