A young girl lectures readers on how important weights and measures are, then recites the English conversion tables (tablespoons and cups, ounces and pounds, inches and yards) without any embellishment (or any mention of the metric system). Some attempt is made to contextualize the measures in the text and stiff artwork, but the overall effect is pedantic. Pictorial conversion tables are in the back of the book.

Gr 1-3-In an unusually thorough fashion for this audience, Sweeney defines the various units of measurement. A young girl prepares breakfast using teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, and liquid measurements such as pints and quarts. Each unit is defined in relation to the other and Cable's detailed drawings serve as visual references. The crayon illustrations include both pictorial and numeric references. From the "1 quart (32 ounces)" label on a milk carton to the "2,000 pounds=1 ton" note next to a 1-ton bag of gummy bears, the pictures effectively reinforce the concepts presented. That said, the artist's childlike illustrations are not particularly attractive and the young narrator's disproportionately large eyes are a bit disturbing. The text itself is written clearly and in a conversational manner. However, the number of concepts introduced may be a little overwhelming for children to process in a single read.-Louie Lahana, New York City Public Schools Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.