How Much Is a Million? (Reading Rainbow Books)

This is a great book for helping kids have a sense of large quantities.

I have had this book for years for my kids and now grandson and nieces and nephews. It is the best book for understanding the enormity of these numbers that are used in everyday language. I think this book should be required reading not just for all grade schools, but high school and college required social science, economics, and political science classes.

I liked the idea of this book since my kids are always asking about how much a million really is, and I love Steven Kellogg's illustrations, which is the main reason I bought the book and the reason for two stars. However, the entire text is TYPED IN ALL CAPS which make it uncomfortable/difficult to read. There are also actually very few scenarios mentioned in the book. It covers one million by the number of kids standing on one's shoulders, how long it would take to count, and how big a bowl would have to be to hold that many fish, and number of stars. Then it covers one billion - again with the same measures: kids on shoulders, time it takes to count that far, what a billion fish would fit into, and number of stars. Then one trillion - again with the same measures. I would have enjoyed hearing more of a variety of ways the numbers could be counted to put it into further context, and not used the same measures for each.The author also wastes 7 pages out of this 34 page book - a full 20% of the book (see what I did there? math!) with nothing but dots representing 100,000 stars. At the end of the book, the author explains his math in great detail, which is pretty neat for an adult to read, but definitely not interesting or understandable for the age group this book is written for. My kids looked through this once, mainly for the pictures, and it was then immediately forgotten, including by me until I decided to take some time to review my purchases from the past six months. I'd pass if I were you.

The book was ok. I expected more but my kid loves it.

What I ordered. Great illustrations. On time.

"How much is a million?" is a question that every child asks before 2nd grade, and this book provides an accessible visual answer. Adults reading this with a young child will probably be amazed as well! If your child continues with the obvious next question "what is the largest number there is?", after explaining that there is none, you might explain that the largest number that has actually been named is a "googolplex", 1 followed by a google of zeroes, and whip out Schwartz' book on the googol...

As a finance manager for many years I used and continue to use this book to explain how much is a million and make sure that all of the corporate analysts remember that a million is a really big number! Great teaching tool with memorable examples.

Just like the one I had as a child! I’m excited to share this with my children.Gifted for a birthday and he loved it!

Great book. My daughter was asking what is the last number in the universe and what is a million and this really made her able to visualise the numbers. Thank you.

brilliant book - helped me greatly with lesson planning

I read this book as a kid, and wanted to buy it for a little boy that I babysit who reminds me very much of myself as a child. For any kids who are interested in science or numbers, or ask lot of questions. This book does a wonderful job of giving context to large numbers (e.g. if 1 million children stood on each others shoulders, how far into space would they reach?). I find the illustrations to be lovely as well.

... dieses Buch bestellt, weil ich eine bilinguale vierte Klasse unterrichte. Als wir den Zahlenraum bis zur Million lernten, habe ich damit veranschaulicht. Die Kinder haben das Buch geliebt und schauen es sich heute noch gerne an :)

Fantastic book! I teach upper elementary, and this book is really helpful for understanding the size of really big numbers.