Hungry Little Frog by Ron Hirschi; Dwight KuhnReview by: David J. WhitinThe Arithmetic Teacher, Vol. 41, No. 7 (MARCH 1994), p. 420Published by: National Council of Teachers of MathematicsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41196032 .

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REVIEWING AND VIEWING ■ NEW BOOKS

FOR STUDENTS FOR TEACHERS

■ ETCETERA

REVIEWING AND VIEWING

New Books

For Students The Biggest Birthday Cake in the World, Elizabeth Spurr, Mus. by Rosarme Litzinger. 1991, 29 pp., $14.95 cloth. ISBN 0- 15-207150-4. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1250 Sixth Ave., San Diego, CA 92101, (619) 699- 6435.

In the old days, the Richest Man in the World was, of course, the Fattest Man in the World. He lived in the Biggest House in the World, all alone except for 100 cooks and 3 vice presidents. Four weeks before his fortieth birthday he instructs these cooks and vice presidents to bake him the Biggest Birthday Cake in the World. They crack 40 000 eggs and mix 31 500 pounds of flour, 12 000 pounds of sugar, 7 000 pounds of cocoa, and 2 500 gallons of milk. The cake is baked and loaded onto flatbed cars that transport it in sections to an open field. Workers use cranes to put it together and cement mixers and trowels to spread on the frosting. The village children watch all this activity with great interest, but the Richest- and-Fattest Man dislikes their hungry-looking eyes and hires security police to keep them away. However, when his birthday finally arrives, a sudden turn of events occurs causing the Richest-and-Fattest Man gladly to share his cake with the children.

Readers will enjoy the massive list of ingredients for the cake and might enjoy calculating to see if these ingredients are proportionately feasible. They might want to

Edited by David J. Whitin University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208

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take a favorite recipe of their own and calculate the ingredients for another huge cake. Other children might consult the latest Guinness Book of World Records for cake records and other interesting food firsts. Readers might also be interested in the language for describing this monstrous cake: colossal, monumental, prodigious, and gargantuan.

What other words might children use to describe something especially large (or especially small)? Here is a book that will engage children in some interesting discussions about size and relative comparisons. - David J. Whitin.

The Great Pumpkin Switch, Megan McDonald, Mus. by Ted Lewin. 1992, 30 pp., $14.95 cloth. ISBN 0-531-05450-0. Orchard Books, 387 Park Ave. S., New York, NY 10016.

This story begins with an older adult telling his two grandchildren about a story from his childhood. One summer his sister Rosie was trying to grow the biggest pumpkin ever; she was hoping to win some special patches that she saw advertised in a seed catalog and sew them into a special quilt she was making. After a sudden storm that summer, the storyteller and his friend Otto must saw off the branches of a poplar tree that had fallen across their front yard; accidentally they saw through the vine of Rosie' s pumpkin, known as Big Max, and it crashes down the front steps and splatters on the walkway. The boys quickly devise a plan so Rosie and Mama won't find out about the disaster. They give the smashed pumpkin to the hungry pig next door and then find Mr. Angelo, the "Potato Man," who had just passed through town in his wagon selling some of his own pumpkins. They buy his biggest pumpkin and secretly tie it on the vine "as good as ever," hiding the string underneath a leaf. The next day Rosie can't believe the monstrous size of her pumpkin, and the boys are quietly relieved that all ends happily.

It is interesting to note the different ways that people describe this biggest pumpkin ever: "bigger than a bushel basket," "big as a washtub," and as big around as Rosie can stretch her arms. Children might discuss

comparisons they use to describe the size of unusually large, or small, objects. If teachers have pumpkins in their room in the fall, they might enjoy reading this book and discussing different ways they could measure their own pumpkins, such as height, weight, girth, number of seeds, number of lines, and so on. Some children might want to consult the Guinness Book of World Records to find the largest pumpkin ever grown (currently it's an 816- pound pumpkin grown in New Jersey) or discover world records for other fruits or vegetables. - David J. Whitin.

Hungry Little Frog, Ron Hirschi, photog. by Dwight Kuhn. 1992, 25 pp., $9.95 cloth. ISBN 0-525-65109-8. Cobblehill Books, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014.

This counting book for young readers follows a frog, known as a spring peeper, in his search for food. The frog keeps following one ladybug, as it hops on the back of one slippery salamander, then climbs on one of two tall mushrooms, passes three yellow flowers, four juicy strawberries, five blue eggs, six peas in a pod, seven pink flowers, and so on. The illustrations are crisp color photographs that give readers a close-up view of this frog and its surroundings, including such other creatures as a slug, an eastern painted turtle, and a red-bellied snake. The objects to count are all placed on uncluttered backgrounds for ease of counting. One confusing element of the book is the way the ladybug is represented; readers see the ladybug in three different sizes, ranging from a life- sized photograph at the beginning to a size so large at the end of the book that appears to be as big as the frog. This inconsistency in scale makes the size of the creatures misleading for young readers. - David J. Whitin.

Notorious Numbers, Paul Giganti, Jr., Mus. by Aaron Grbich. 1993, 20 pp., $14.95 paper. ISBN 1-56785-005-7. Teaching Resource Center, P.O. Box 1509, 14023 Catalina St., San Leandro, CA 94577, (510) 895-8193.

The world of multiples is introduced to young

420 ARITHMETIC TEACHER

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