4.5 Stars

Pebbles is a cutie butterfly who loves numbers. One day, he gets bored of counting the flowers in his garden and decides to explore the world to find the biggest number possible. Thus begin his adventures across a desert, tropical rainforest, beach, snow-clad mountains, an observatory, and space! 

The book starts with single-digit numbers and ends with infinity. The journey is long, adventurous, exciting, and filled with facts. I’m no math geek (though I enjoyed calculus during my teen days), and I still loved the book for its content. Everything in the book is about numbers and scientific facts. This combo works great to teach kids about nature, science, and simple math all at once. 

We also get to experience different regions, weather conditions, and natural calamities. From a thunderstorm to an avalanche, the book has it all. And the best part is that the trivia or the math doesn’t get overwhelming. Of course, you can always read the book over a few days and tackle 2-3 pages a day. Subtle and cheeky humor is seamlessly woven into the content. Those were my favorite bits. 

I love how the metrics are presented in both scales (Celsius & Fahrenheit, Miles & Kilometers, Pounds, Kilograms, & Cups). This makes the book reader-friendly. However, the biggest number is presented only in the American numerical system. Makes sense with all those zeros as we reach octillion and nonillion (not telling you how many zeros these have!). 

I read kiddo books mainly for the illustrations (it’s an open secret). The illustrations in this one are vibrant, bright, colorful, and appealing. The animals, birds, and insects have cute expressions and detailing. The sizes are off, which is necessary since Pebbles is a butterfly. The book ends with a glossary and a summary of the numbers with grains of sand as the measurement scale. 

To summarize, Pebbles and the Biggest Number is a cute, informative, and highly useful book to help kids like math a little more and make it enjoyable. I wish it had a small activities section, but you can come up with something based on the content. 

My thanks to the author Joey Benun for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.