SO SMALL! YOSEMITE

A bear and a chickaree enjoy small treasures in Yosemite National Park.

As a companion to So Big! Yosemite (2017), this board book features the same question-and-answer format accompanied by Iwai’s illustrations, this time featuring tiny natural resources found in Yosemite National Park: the chickaree squirrel, a sequoia cone, an alpine shooting star flower, and others. On each recto is the question with the object shown on its own. On the verso of the next double-page spread is the unchanging answer (“SO SMALL!”) and the object shown with a jovial black bear for size contrast. “How small is a Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog? // SO SMALL!” Including the bear in each answer illustration gives some sense of scale (the granite pebble is shown in the bear’s paw, for instance), but it may be difficult for toddlers to get an idea of just how small the object in question actually is without direct familiarity. It does not help that some of the objects, the frog, for instance, are shown in different sizes on different pages, and there is no comparison between familiar objects, most toddlers never having gotten up close and personal with a black bear.

This introduction to Yosemite may work well in conjunction with a visit, but as a book to learn about what is small, it misses the mark.