THE LIBRARIAN WHO MEASURED THE EARTH
Written by Kathryn Lasky
Illustrated by Kevin Hawkes
(Little, Brown, 1994)
Category: Picture book biography
I re-read this favorite in honor of the Year of Science and its January theme of ‘Process and the Nature of Science’. Truth be told, I first read a number of books that tackle this theme in a straightforward manner, books for young readers that list the steps of the scientific method and define bold-print words like theory, experiment, and conclusion. As important as these books are, they just didn’t inspire a blog post.
THE LIBRARIAN WHO MEASURED THE EARTH, however, represents an entirely different approach to exploring the nature of science, one that gets me itching to blog: story. To get a better understanding of how one might tackle the enormous task of measuring the circumference of the earth, Lasky and Hawkes share the story of Eratosthenes, the Greek scholar who was the first man to do so. Readers learn the process he used (ingenius!), but they also learn about the boy he was (curious), the man he became (intense), the time he lived in (books were printed by hand, one at a time, on papyrus scrolls) and the success of his study (recent calculations reveal Eratosthenes’ estimated circumference—calculated two thousand years ago—was off by only two hundred miles). All this in a forty-eight page picture book!
For more books about the process and nature of science, check out the archives at Open Wide, Look Inside, a blog “about teaching elementary math, science and socials studies, with heavy emphasis on the integration of children’s literature across the curriculum.” Tricia Stohr-Hunt and her students consistently serves up thoughtful posts on excellent books.
You will also find an eclectic selection of blog posts on children’s nonfiction today (and every Monday!) at the Nonfiction Monday roundup, hosted today at Anastasia Suen’s Picture Book of the Day blog.
Happy Reading!
Happy Year of Science!
