Offers a visual guide, with brief explanatory text, to comparative sizes, heights, weights, and numbers in such areas as capacity, population, growth, weather, disasters, speed, and others Grade 5-8. This eye-catching book makes comparisons based on known quantities rather than numerical measurements. For example, the weight of the blue whale is compared verbally and graphically to the weight of 26 African elephants. Double-page spreads are devoted to the measurement of comparative sizes, weights, volumes, heights, speeds, and distances. The scope includes the cosmos, Earth, and life on it. The introduction defines the basic yardsticks to be used; once comparisons are made to these points of reference, these new comparisons may be used in later sections. There are straight equivalencies, such as the population of Seoul being equal to the population of Australia. Other comparisons are proportional: if a man could jump as far as a grasshopper, he could long jump 103 feet instead of merely the world record of 29 feet. The informative, entertaining illustrations are used effectively to demonstrate the topics covered. A minor quibble is that while the index helps locate references to specific items, it does not indicate what is measured. Overall, though, this bright and colorful oversized offering is a delight; it is a great source for browsing, as each entry leads readers down a new path.?Jeffrey A. French, Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Gr. 4 and up. Although its main audience will probably be upper-elementary and middle-school children, this is a book that really defies age categorizing. Even adults will find themselves flipping the pages. The combination of informative thumbnail captions and extraordinarily detailed artwork, presented on well-thought-out double-page spreads (and a few spectacular foldouts), is DK at its best. Some of the illustrations, including one of a 40-week-old fetus, are even presented "actual" size. Ash sets the stage with the ground rules he used to make his comparisons and with some guidelines for successfully using the book. In succeeding chapters, he covers a wealth of topics--from expected ones (speed and weight, for example) to more specialized ones aimed at helping readers better understand some of the mysteries of the universe and the workings of the human body. Selective is the operative term here, and the book's large size may prove a shelver's nightmare. On the other hand, it is a true browser's delight; leave it out on a table, and you'll draw a crowd. Stephanie Zvirin Use this visual guide to help turn statistics into pictures: this surveys sizes, heights, speeds, and numbers using a fine cross-comparison visual approach which encourages kids to think about the realities of numbers. From animals to human creations, this is an unusual, involving oversized creation. -- Midwest Book Review Russell Ash is the uncontested king of lists. Not simply a career, listmaking is his legend, facts his friends, statistics his sanctuary, trivia his triumph. He was descended from a family of craftsmen who were London goldsmiths and silversmiths for several generations since the 17th century -- the most notable being Claudius Ash (1792-1854), one of the principal inventors of false teeth. His father was a bookbinder at the British Museum. Born in 1946, educated at Bedford Modern School, Mr. Ash attended Durham University where he earned a Joint Honours BA in Anthropology and Geology. Russell Ash began his career in publishing as a picture researcher in 1967; he moved on in 1973 to establish his own publishing company, Ash & Grant, and was a director of Weidenfeld & Nicholson and Pavilion Books. Mr. Ash has spent most of the past 30 years as a freelance writer and contributor to almost 100 non-fiction titles on such subjects as art (particularly the Impressionists and other late nineteenth-century painters), animals real and fictitious (he is the official "biographer" of Paddington Bear), and humor. He has compiled various award-winning popular reference titles, including the perennial bestselling Top Ten of Everything, which has also inspired a weekly network children's television series in the UK (in which he appears). He has also written Incredible Comparisons, which features a variety of fascinating objects side by side with accompanying statistics. The World in One Day is his 1997 bestseller for children, chronicling all the facts about daily life. His latest children's book, Factastic Millennium Facts, is packed with intriguing information and entertaining anecdotes covering the key worldwide political, social , and cultural events of the last 1,000 years. Russell Ash is currently an author, occasional journalist, and packager of books in the UK and US. He lives in a large Victorian house (which he is restoring) in Sussex, England with his wife, daughter, and two sons. He has recently returned to the family tr