If You Hopped Like A Frog

Einstein wondered what it was like to be a beam of light, but the rest of us are happy wondering what it's like to be a flea or a brachiosaurus. David M. Schwartz's engaging picture book is for the rest of us. With the help of James Warhola's colorful, exaggerated illustrations, we learn about the cool things we could do if we were various nonhuman types of creatures. If you high-jumped like a flea, for example, you could jump straight into the Statue of Liberty's torch. If you ate like a shrew, you could devour over 700 hamburgers a day! Each comparison is explained scientifically in a comically illustrated appendix, where young readers will find questions designed to elicit further comparing and calculating. The best surprise by far is finding out what would happen if you grew as fast in your first nine months of life as you did in the nine months before you were born. (Ages 3 to 8) --Richard Farr