IS A BLUE WHALE THE BIGGEST THING THERE IS?

Relative sizes—of whales, mountains, planets, galaxies, etc.—illustrated with stacked bowls containing 100 whales, stacked Mt. Everests, bags holding 100 earths next to the sun, 100 suns in a crate, etc. The pictures are colorful and entertaining, but more whimsical than accurate: arithmetic suggests that the bowl shown holding 100 whales is too big relative to the whales; and if it takes one minute to count to 100, why does it take 12 to count to a thousand? (Yes, there's a possible reason—higher numbers take longer to say—but it's not mentioned.) The targeted reader may be unlikely to make such connections, but an early book about numbers and size should foster an appreciation of scale and accuracy. In David M. Schwartz's How Much Is A Million? (1985), assumptions about counting and distance are all carefully explained, so that it's both good whimsy and good science. A usable concept book, but not exemplary. (Nonfiction. 7+)