Super Small: Miniature Marvels of the Natural World

Author Tiffany Stone and illustrator Ashley Spires have combined to create a charmingly humorous and intriguingly informative book for curious young students.

Most of the Super Small: Miniature Marvels of the Natural World are unlikely to be familiar to readers, but they are all fascinating creatures with which we share this world. Using short poems, Stone presents 15 tiny but mighty marvels, including:

The dwarf lantern shark, the smallest shark in the world, that glows with bioluminescence.

Axolotl, a small salamander that can regenerated legs, spine, and even parts of its brain.

The immortal jellyfish that goes beyond regeneration. It can revert to the polyp (immature) phase when stressed or injured and begin its life all over again.

Picture it now: a mom or a dad
who is having the worst day that they’ve ever had.
But instead of collapsing from stress or from pain —
POOF! What the heck?! They’re a baby again.
And this restart repeats every time they face strife,
so they don’t ever quit, they just reboot their life.

Now I know that you know this is not how it goes,
at least not for humans. No, never for those.
But one kind of jellyfish, tiny and clever,
does really renew — and might do so forever …

Additional information explaining each creature’s superpower is included in cartoon-style panels of illustrations accompanying the poems. Students will love the humour in the illustrations.

The real superpower of this book is the message to young readers to identify their own superpower.

“You’re just a kid,” is their excuse.
“Too super small to be of use.”
But I know this isn’t true.
There’s lots of stuff that I can do.
Because they think I’m only small,
they don’t suspect a thing at all.
They’ll be amazed at what I did —
even though I’m “just” a kid!

What is YOUR superpower?”

The accompanying illustration shows a young person wearing a cape as they soar away in a homemade hot air balloon.

Super Small is a book that needs and deserves to be shared. The poems work best when read aloud. The cartoon illustrations are full of large-eyed laughing and smiling creatures doing whatever they do best, whether its becoming an amphibian popsicle or a plant hopper getting its rear gears ratcheted by an adult insect with a tool kit.

Young students and adults sharing Super Small: Miniature Marvels of the Natural World are both going to enjoy the learning.