Big Bang!: The Tongue-Tickling Tale of a Speck That Became Spectacular

by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano, Michael Carroll (Illustrator)

Overview

Billions of years ago, everything in the universe was crunched up into a tiny speck that was smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. How did this little speck become the universe we know today? Playful, alliterative verse and clear prose tell the story of the universe's journey from speck to spectacular. Bold illustrations help uncover the secrets of the cosmos. The sky will never look the same again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781570916199
Publisher:	Charlesbridge
Publication date:	02/01/2005
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	11.00(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.11(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano is the author of LEONARDO'S ABC, as well as the acclaimed nonfiction middle grade read, A BLACK HOLE IS NOT A HOLE. Aside from writing for children, Carolyn is also science educator and principal consultant with Blue Heron STEM Education. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 4-6-In a picture-book format, DeCristofano tells the story of the origin of the universe. She describes the original singularity from which the Big Bang erupted and follows with the rapid expansion of the universe, the formation of atoms, stars, galaxies, and so on. She discusses the discovery of the Big Bang through the expansion of the universe, presenting a clear analogy with an expanding balloon, and follows up with information on residual radiation and the variety of telescopes used to study the universe. The conclusion asks about the fate of the universe and presents a time line showing the brief duration of human history relative to the universe. Carroll's spectacular illustrations, with a few photos of celestial objects interspersed, provide a dramatic background for the text and help clarify the concepts. DeCristofano does well at explaining complex ideas in a simple way, making scientific jargon understandable. The subtitle is a clue to the clever writing, although the style is sometimes overly cute, for example, "smaller than a freckle on a flea-if fleas could get freckles." Stylistically comparable to Seymour Simon's The Universe (Morrow, 1998), this book presents a rudimentary version of Mark Garlick's The Expanding Universe (DK, 2002).-Jeffrey A. French, Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library, Willowick, OH Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

A mix of astronomical photos and splashy, spread-filling painted star fields illustrate this double-stranded account of the universe's likely origin. DeCristofano alternates informal explanations with lines of an alphabetical poem, taking our universe from "An astronomical Big Bang / Changed the crunched-up universe, causing the current cosmos" to "Yet the universe remains zipped up. / Will it ever reveal its ways?" Simplifying basic concepts-describing the formation of matter, for instance, but not of space and time along with it-she chronicles each stage of the Big Bang, goes on to a quick history of observational astronomy, and the discovery that the universe is expanding, and then closes with the optimistic thought that we just might unzip those ways, one day. An energetic, animated alternative to Seymour Simon's more matter-of-fact Universe (2000). (Nonfiction. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews