Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?

By Robert E. Wells
Paperback : 32 Pages
January 1, 1993

Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is is an adorable book written with 4-8 year olds in mind. While it doesn’t exclusively cover animals, I enjoyed it so much that I’m going to add it in my bibliography anyway. Hey, it’s science!

Anyway, this book asks the titular question, and then, with use of charming illustrations and examples, explains how there are things much larger than the Blue Whale, and even much larger than our own planet and sun.

Wells tackles the concept of size by using ingenious comparisons between objects. For example, if you pretended our sun was an orange, and put it in a crate with 99 other “oranges,” you could neatly place that crate on the Supergiant Star Antares.. multiple times! Wells uses similar examples to move between increasingly larger and larger things.

I really enjoyed this book, and I feel it handled its topic very well. I’d image explaining the vast, expansive size of the universe to a 3rd grader might be difficult, but this book certainly makes it easier. And the lion drawing at the very beginning is exceptionally cute.

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