Your Place in the Universe

By Jason Chin

Neal Porter Books, Holiday House, 2020. Picture Book.

Chin explains concepts that are literally out of this world to kids in such a way that they can understand the scale of the ideas. Chin starts by explaining that kids who are about 8-years-old are an average of about 50 inches—which would be about as tall as five copies of this book stacked on top of each other. Then he goes on to explain how tall that is compared to an ostrich or a giraffe. Then things go all the way (step by step so kids can continue to understand the grand scale of things) to galaxies and the universe.

This is a brilliant way to look at the scale of things compared to each other—and a good way for kids to understand since the start of the comparisons start with them and their size. Not only does each page have side-note details about the things being talked about on the page, the end of the book also contains extra details to further explain things too large to comprehend (such as the solar system or cosmic webs). All-in-all this is a book kids will want to look at multiple times to figure out their “place in the universe.”

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