Ratios in Children's Books

Middle schoolers may be surprised and pleased to find ratios treated as the subject of these three picture books. You can find the books in school or public libraries. They are also available from online booksellers.

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Cut Down to Size at High Noon

by Scott Sundby and illustrated by Wayne Geehan

This parody of classic western movies teaches scale and proportion. The story takes place in Cowlick, a town filled with people with intricate western-themed hairstyles that the town's one and only barber creates with the help of scale drawings. Enter a second barber, and the town does not seem big enough for both of them! The story reaches its high point of suspense when the two barbers face off with scissors at high noon. The duel ends in a draw of equally magnificent haircuts, one in the shape of a grasshopper and the other in the shape of a train engine, and the reader learns that scale drawings can be used to scale up as well as down.

If You Hopped Like a Frog

by David M. Schwartz and illustrated by James Warhola

Imagine, with the help of ratio and proportion, what you could accomplish if you could hop like a frog or eat like a shrew. You would certainly be a shoo-in for the Guinness World Records. The book first shows what a person could do if he or she could hop proportionately as far as a frog or were proportionately as powerful as an ant. At the back of the book, the author explains each example and poses questions at the end of the explanations.

If the World Were a Village: A Book about the World's People

by David J. Smith and illustrated by Shelagh Armstrong

How can you comprehend statistics about a world brimming with more than 6.2 billion people (the population in January 2002)? One answer to understanding large numbers is to create a scale where 100 people represent the total world population and change the other numbers proportionally. In a world of 100 people, how many people (approximately) would come from China? (21) From India? (17) From the United States? (5) In the same way, the book presents statistics about the different languages spoken in the world, age distributions, religions, air and water quality, and much more.

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Copyright June 2006 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.