Have you ever wondered how big the world is? How can it be measured?
Authored by Sabine Bohlmann
Illustrated by Emilia Dziubak
Translated by Polly Lawson
Published by Floris Books 2024
ISBN 9781782509127
Category: Children's books, values, the world, nature.
Pages: 28
Age: 4 - 9
Description:
This is a story about curiosity, discovery, sharing and love.
A curious kitten wants to know everything about the world, just as any kid would.
Question after question, mother cat answers patiently with inmense love and tenderness to the amazement of the little kitten who wants to know more!
It is a story for adults too, to reflect on the vast world that belongs to all of us.
I was delighted by the answers Mother cat gave. The kitten curiosity reminded me of the innocent questions my children and students used to ask based on their small world in an attempt to discover what awaited beyond.
I found the story perfect to cater for children's desire to know more.
Curiosity...is beautifully encouraged!
About the illustration:
Page after page we are carried through a greener world with adorable sunny skies and creatures big and small. Then, when night comes, we are surprised by an inmersive starry skies that makes us feel how small we are in this world!
Ideas to work in class:
Talk about the cover: they may have incredible answers or no answers at all. The aim is to engage them and instill curiosity.
-ask: Does the sky where you live look like the one in the book? How far are the stars? How big are the stars? What shape are they? Are they floating?
Can we travel to the stars? Why do they shine? Where do stars go during the day? Why can we see more stars in the country than in the city?
Lexis and vocabulary:
-adjectives: big,wide, deep, high
-nouns: sky, stars, night and day, names of the planets, names of animals.
Grammar: comparative forms: -er, as...as, much...
Nature: talk about the world: activities suggested for children year 3th or 4th.
-notion of solar system, size of the planets
-movememnt of the Earth
-notion of life under the surface
-cycles day-night
-cycles of life: young-adult
Values: the idea of love that can be shared
Art: the solar system:
-children can make paper balls and glue them to a cardboard, then draw the orbits and write the name of the planets or just the Sun and Earth.
-demostrate the rotation of the Earth: if possible, go to the backyard and draw the orbits on the floor, one child will be the Sun and hold a torch. Another child will be the Earth and will go round the Sun and spin like the Earth on its axis to show the cycles of day and night.
Math: to help children get a dimension of distances:
-consult these pages which provide information for kids:
-design your own metric system using objects that are more familiar to children:
eg: footsteps, the size of a football pitch, the size of (3) classrooms, like the height of (4) children one on top of the other; they can find more ideas in the book!
About:
Author: Sabine Bohlmann is an actor, voice actor and author from Germany. In her home country, she is perhaps best known as the German voice of Lisa and Maggie Simpson. Sabine is the author of numerous picture books and early readers. She lives in Munich.
Illustrator: Emilia Dziubak is an award-winning artist from Poland. She is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan and has illustrated numerous children's picture books that have been translated into many languages. She is the illustrator of USBBY- listed The House of Lost and Found, as well as Little Pearl, Dreams of Near and Far and When Little Owl Met Little Rabbit.
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