Infinity and Me
When I looked up, I shivered. How many stars were in the sky? A million? A billion? Maybe the number was as big as infinity. I started to feel very, very small. How could I even think about something as big as infinity?
Uma can't help feeling small when she peers up at the night sky. She begins to wonder about infinity. Is infinity a number that grows forever? Is it an endless racetrack? Could infinity be in an ice cream cone? Uma soon finds that the ways to think about this big idea may just be . . . infinite.
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If you're born on this planet, you're set for a colorful life, whether you want it or not. I found myself in Eastern Europe, in southern Poland, in a little village with a weird name.
I don't remember making that decision. The first thing I remember are the crows. Crows are to Poland what ravens are to London. The crows would hold daily conferences right in front of my house, spreading their black selves like a carpet over the grassy field. I'd run up to them and watch them rise like a shimmering giant, watch the sky swallow them up. I wrote stories until it was decided that there was too much kissing going on--in the stories, of course, not in real life. I was forbidden to write any more. I drew pictures, of princesses mostly. As there were no objections, I kept at it all through elementary school, gymnasium, college, and right into my professional life. While at elementary school, I really did believe I was a princess. Not the Disney kind, but one more along the lines of a Russian folktale, the princess lost and never found, waiting patiently for the day it was officially announced. I entered the Lyceum of Art at fourteen and discovered it was full of princesses, as well as knights. Sometime around the third year of school it dawned on me that if I was the "lost and never found" kind of princess, there was no use waiting for the official announcement. So I climbed on top of my wardrobe to take a look at things from a different perspective and decided it was time to go to America. I took my dog with me. My dog was very fond of eating toilet paper, and since we had no such commodity in Poland at the time, I figured he'd do better in America. Plus, I couldn't bear to leave him behind. Gabi Swiatkowska was born in Tychy, Poland, and attended the Lyceum of Art in Bielsko-Biala, as well as the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City. She lives in Brooklyn, New York."A stellar artistic vision of the infinite power of intergenerational love." --starred, Kirkus Reviews
-- (9/15/2012 12:00:00 AM)"Even for adults, this is an enormously complex idea--scientifically, mathematically, philosophically--but Hosford smoothly distills it to a manageable serving that will both engage and challenge kids. Swiatkowska's art, too, is remarkable at this elucidation, illustrating the text literally but with appropriately disorienting and surreal details that combine to whimsical, visually stunning effect." --The Horn Book Magazine
-- (1/1/2013 12:00:00 AM)"Swiatkowska's imaginative artwork combines the free-wheeling, slightly eerie absurdity of Monty Python animations, the formality of nineteenth-century decorative patterning, and the playful nerdiness of Leonardo da Vinci-styled inventions. For math and language arts teachers in search of circular common ground, ∞ marks the spot."--The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
-- (11/13/2012 12:00:00 AM)"This unusual, philosophical picture book makes this seemingly difficult concept approachable and interesting....This quiet jewel is sure to spark contemplation and conversation among readers."
--School Library Journal-- (10/1/2012 12:00:00 AM)"Hosford's (Big Bouffant) story is as much a look into the interior life of a sensitive girl as it is a meditation on a mathematical concept--a task for which Swiatkowska's (This Baby) idiosyncratic portraits are perfectly suited." --Publishers Weekly
-- (9/24/2012 12:00:00 AM)"Swiatkowska's Victorian-style drawings are vaguely reminiscent of Edward Gorey, and Hosford effectively reflects the ways in which young children might grapple with, and come to some understanding of, such an impenetrable notion." --The New York Times Book Review
-- (8/26/2012 12:00:00 AM)
