Title: The Librarian Who Measured The Earth
Author: Kathryn Lasky
Illustrator: Kevin Hawkes
Publisher and Year: Little, Brown and Company 1994
Number of Pages: 47
Tags/Theme:
Descriptive Annotation: This book is about a Greek librarian named Eratosthenes. He was very interested in geography and wanted to measure how big the Earth was. It details his life, but he is most known for figuring out how to calculate the Earth’s circumference. It also explains how he was a very curious man and questioned a lot of things, but mainly focused on how he learned to calculate the Earth’s circumference.
Classroom Application: This book could be used to introduce Greek scholars, but also be used to introduce the mathematical concept of circumference. Eratosthenes was the first person to find out the circumference of the Earth, so it would be a cool way of introducing circumference to younger kids.
Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: This book explains how schools were back in ancient Greece and how they studied, “At the gymnasium there were no desks, no paper, and no pencils.” Showing how school was different and that there are different ways to learn. Eratosthenes was a very curious person and questioned lots of things, so this could be used to show that asking questions is a good thing because it leads to knowing more things. That’s how he learned the circumference of the Earth because it started out as a question, “When he could speak, he began asking hundreds and even thousands of questions.” At the root of learning is a question, so it is good to have questions.
