Crash! Boom! a Math Tale - by Robie H Harris (Hardcover)

About the Book

Elephant has a bucket of blocks and wants to build something as tall as he is. But will it stay up? CRASH! BOOM! Not this time. Build it again? Young children follow along as Elephant goes through the ups and downs of creating something new and finally celebrates the joy and pride of success. Full color.

Book Synopsis

How do these blocks stack up? Gentle math concepts go down easy in this fun and accessible story for very young children by the esteemed Robie H. Harris.

Elephant has a bucket of blocks and wants to build something tall. Something as tall as Elephant. But will it stay up? CRASH! BOOM! Not this time. Build it again? One block. Two blocks? Four blocks? It's still not as tall as Elephant. More blocks! Now will it stay up? Now will it be as tall as Elephant? Build, balance, count -- question, estimate, measure -- predict, crash, and build again! Young children will happily follow along as Elephant goes through the ups and downs of creating something new and finally celebrates the joy and pride of success.

Review Quotes

Unlike many other math titles, there is no note to parents or teachers and no directions to kids--it's just a simple tale of a child exploring with blocks. Elephant's pure joy in exploration and success are sure to be catching, so make sure the blocks are close at hand.
--Kirkus Reviews

A clever blend of scanned images of wooden unit blocks and a perfectly adorable hand-drawn blue elephant set the stage of this counting and building book...A simply presented look at block play and the mathematics behind it. Perfect for early learning collections in both public and school libraries.
--School Library Journal

Attention, aspiring architects and engineers: a first builder's blueprint for constructing really, really tall buildings has arrived!...The tenacious elephant, clad in a purple sweater, appears on every page, and his expressive face conveys his every emotion, obvious in this simple story for very young children who want to construct with expertise and count as they go.
--Booklist

About the Author

Robie H. Harris (1940-2024) is the New York Times best-selling author of the acclaimed Family Library series--It's Perfectly Normal, It's So Amazing!, and It's Not the Stork!--illustrated by Michael Emberley; CRASH! BOOM! A Math Tale, illustrated by Chris Chatterton; and Somewhere, illustrated by Armando Mariño. She is also the author of the Let's Talk About You and Me series, illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott, and many other books for young children.

Chris Chatterton is an author, animator, and the illustrator of There's a Bison Bouncing on the Bed! by Paul Bright and When Santa Came to Stay by Timothy Knapman. Chris Chatterton lives in Newcastle upon Thyme, England.