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A Thousand Billion Things
Every day presents us with a wide range of choices including what to have to breakfast, what to wear and what to do in our spare time. Even deciding which piece of homework to tackle first presents a challenge. But when night comes and it’s time for bed, what choice is there but to lie in the dark … and count sheep? This book takes us through all the choices in a typical child’s busy day and presents the reader with a puzzle. On every spread there’s something specific to find amongst the thousand billion (well, almost) things in the bright and busy artwork.
32 pages, Hardcover
Published October 3, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 4, 2018
"I don't like going to sleep!
Of course, you are wondering, why not? Well, let me tell you, it's a matter of choice!"
This book was surprising, I had no idea what it was about when I picked it up, but it is a seek-and-find book in the vein of Where's Waldo? or I Spy: A Book of Picture Riddles.
Our protagonist - who looks like a girl to me, but could easily be a boy. I mean, what am I basing her girlhood on? Her hair? Gender and sex are never mentioned - starts off by stating she doesn't like going to sleep. She describes this as "a matter of choice." I'm chuckling to myself because there's no choice involved.
Sure there is. One can choose not to go to bed.
Okay, fine, but humans need sleep. You will sleep eventually. You can't survive without sleep. So...
We turn the page and we are confronted with our MC surrounded by a sea of breakfast food.
At breakfast, I get to choose between trying to butter a mountain of toast without breaking it, or drowning an avalanche of breakfast cereal in milk.
Can you find my box of breakfast cereal?
That's when it dawned on me that this was going to be a seek-and-find book.
Then in the bathroom, I can choose between spreading a thick layer of shampoo on my hair or making a fake beard out of shaving foam.
Can you find the 6 rubber ducks I play with?
Then we move on to clothes.
Getting dressed involves a hundred different decisions. Stripes or spots? A single sock or two pairs of tights? I'm quite a trend setter, you know.
Where is my spotty green sweater?
Then she is surrounded by robins, leaves, and bugs.
In the garden, between the dandelions and the ants, I feel like a giant in the home of the mini-beasties.
Can you spot the 4 hedgehogs?
Next there is a sea of vegetables.
Every Saturday, Mom and I go to the market. It's a heavenly place where I can taste a bit of everything, for free! (If I ask nicely...).
Find the nibbled carrot!
Then we are in a toy store. Everything from Barbies to stuffed giraffes litter the page.
Then, we go to MY store, where things go KABOOM! and RING RING! when you press their thingamajig. I love it!
Can you find the frog mask I'm wearing?
Then she is taken to a bakery and baked goods are everywhere, from soft pretzels to cream puffs.
Her dad takes her to an aquarium, and the page is a literal sea of whales, sharks, fish, and crabs.
Now our little MC begrudgingly makes the decision of whether to do homework or 'forget.' We see cell phones, monopoly boards, tree houses, Jack Skellington for some reason, a keyboard, a trashcan, a sword, a drum... I have no idea what this represents. Items in her room?
Our MC is excited for dinner, but explains that Dad is a bit absent-minded and might burn or over-salt things. We are presented with hundreds of different foods.
On the last page, the protagonist gets down to the business of bedtime.
So, you see, after all those different things to do and choose between during the day, once I get into bed it's a complete nightmare!
The child has a grumpy expression and her thought bubble is filled with hundreds of white sheep.
Sheep.
Nothing but sheep.
Always the same old boring sheep!
WHERE'S THE FUN IN THAT?
How many sheep can you count? It will take you forever to work through this with a child.
The back end pages are complete with the answers (except to the number of sheep), which is a nice feature. Children will also delight in knowing the answer and then quizzing adults. Children adore 'outsmarting' adults. Be ready to be ordered to find things and not 'allowed' to look at the back pages. It will delight children.
The front end pages are filled with hundreds of houses.
The book is cute. I always enjoy seek-and-find books as an adult reader, and children love them as well. This book can literally provide hours and hours of fun and discovery. It's a good book to take on a road trip, vacation, or somewhere where a child might be made to wait.
I read this character as a girl, and a survey I took of adults I know all agreed it was a girl, but you can easily read it as a boy if you want. The book gives zero indication of sex/gender.
The illustrations are tiny, detailed, and fun. Some are quite fetching, the garden page, the bath page, the vegetable/fruit page, and the sea page are the best IMO.
Tl;dr: Fun. Will occupy children for hours. Enjoyable for both children and adults. Ages 2-110.
Of course, you are wondering, why not? Well, let me tell you, it's a matter of choice!"
This book was surprising, I had no idea what it was about when I picked it up, but it is a seek-and-find book in the vein of Where's Waldo? or I Spy: A Book of Picture Riddles.
Our protagonist - who looks like a girl to me, but could easily be a boy. I mean, what am I basing her girlhood on? Her hair? Gender and sex are never mentioned - starts off by stating she doesn't like going to sleep. She describes this as "a matter of choice." I'm chuckling to myself because there's no choice involved.
Sure there is. One can choose not to go to bed.
Okay, fine, but humans need sleep. You will sleep eventually. You can't survive without sleep. So...
We turn the page and we are confronted with our MC surrounded by a sea of breakfast food.
At breakfast, I get to choose between trying to butter a mountain of toast without breaking it, or drowning an avalanche of breakfast cereal in milk.
Can you find my box of breakfast cereal?
That's when it dawned on me that this was going to be a seek-and-find book.
Then in the bathroom, I can choose between spreading a thick layer of shampoo on my hair or making a fake beard out of shaving foam.
Can you find the 6 rubber ducks I play with?
Then we move on to clothes.
Getting dressed involves a hundred different decisions. Stripes or spots? A single sock or two pairs of tights? I'm quite a trend setter, you know.
Where is my spotty green sweater?
Then she is surrounded by robins, leaves, and bugs.
In the garden, between the dandelions and the ants, I feel like a giant in the home of the mini-beasties.
Can you spot the 4 hedgehogs?
Next there is a sea of vegetables.
Every Saturday, Mom and I go to the market. It's a heavenly place where I can taste a bit of everything, for free! (If I ask nicely...).
Find the nibbled carrot!
Then we are in a toy store. Everything from Barbies to stuffed giraffes litter the page.
Then, we go to MY store, where things go KABOOM! and RING RING! when you press their thingamajig. I love it!
Can you find the frog mask I'm wearing?
Then she is taken to a bakery and baked goods are everywhere, from soft pretzels to cream puffs.
Her dad takes her to an aquarium, and the page is a literal sea of whales, sharks, fish, and crabs.
Now our little MC begrudgingly makes the decision of whether to do homework or 'forget.' We see cell phones, monopoly boards, tree houses, Jack Skellington for some reason, a keyboard, a trashcan, a sword, a drum... I have no idea what this represents. Items in her room?
Our MC is excited for dinner, but explains that Dad is a bit absent-minded and might burn or over-salt things. We are presented with hundreds of different foods.
On the last page, the protagonist gets down to the business of bedtime.
So, you see, after all those different things to do and choose between during the day, once I get into bed it's a complete nightmare!
The child has a grumpy expression and her thought bubble is filled with hundreds of white sheep.
Sheep.
Nothing but sheep.
Always the same old boring sheep!
WHERE'S THE FUN IN THAT?
How many sheep can you count? It will take you forever to work through this with a child.
The back end pages are complete with the answers (except to the number of sheep), which is a nice feature. Children will also delight in knowing the answer and then quizzing adults. Children adore 'outsmarting' adults. Be ready to be ordered to find things and not 'allowed' to look at the back pages. It will delight children.
The front end pages are filled with hundreds of houses.
The book is cute. I always enjoy seek-and-find books as an adult reader, and children love them as well. This book can literally provide hours and hours of fun and discovery. It's a good book to take on a road trip, vacation, or somewhere where a child might be made to wait.
I read this character as a girl, and a survey I took of adults I know all agreed it was a girl, but you can easily read it as a boy if you want. The book gives zero indication of sex/gender.
The illustrations are tiny, detailed, and fun. Some are quite fetching, the garden page, the bath page, the vegetable/fruit page, and the sea page are the best IMO.
Tl;dr: Fun. Will occupy children for hours. Enjoyable for both children and adults. Ages 2-110.
July 8, 2018
Well done. Seek and find books are a form I enjoy: those detailed illustrations fascinate me. This is outstanding in that there is an actual point to the brief narrative, the puzzles grow progressively harder, and there are so many sheep to count! Too many for me to count without losing track or my eyes closing (more than 300, anyway). Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys this kind of thing, and to anyone who just wants to see a lot of sheep.
Library copy
Library copy
November 29, 2017
This review was originally written for The Baby Bookworm. Visit us for new picture books reviews daily!
Hello, friends! Our book today is A Thousand Billion Things (And Some Sheep) by Loïc Clément & Anne Montel, a cleverly fun seek-and-find story for bookworms that enjoy a challenge.
Our story opens on a little girl who is none too fond of going to bed. You see, throughout her day there are thousands of choices to make, and it keeps things interesting. A mountain of buttered toast for breakfast, or cereal drowned in an avalanche of milk? Getting dressed in shirt, pants, dress, socks or tights, stripes or spots, blue or yellow? And don’t get her started on all the decisions involved in picking out a treat from the sweet shop. But when you lie down to bed, there’s nothing much to do but sit in the dark… and count dozens of sheep.
Who doesn’t love a good seek-and-find? And this one is indeed entertaining, combining a funny, tongue-in-cheek storyline with some amazingly detailed and whimsical illustrations, eventually coming together to create a clever and humorous twist. The art is definitely the star here, and the intricate illustrations create a stimulating (but not TOO difficult) visual puzzle while hiding some really fun Easter eggs. The length really depends on how much time you care to spend on the puzzles – for little bookworms like JJ, finding the specific items is a bit challenging, though she loved picking out familiar objects from many of the spreads – but the story on it’s own can be read to even the youngest bookworm in a sitting. And yes, there’s a answer key in the back of the book, just in case. Overall, a fun experience, especially for readers big and small to share. Baby Bookworm approved!
(Note: A copy of this book was provided to The Baby Bookworm by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
Be sure to check out The Baby Bookworm for more reviews!
May 1, 2022
Un cherche-trouve tout doux, idées par celui qui est desormais devenu mon duo préféré d’auteur/dessinateur loicclement et annemontel aux editionsbelin. On progresse dans la journée de cet enfant qui ne veut surtout pas se coucher (et on peut le comprendre…!) et on s’amuse à chercher plein des trucs, dessinés avec brio par Anne. L’histoire est simple, mais ça sers bien le but! Merci beaucoup
November 25, 2017
Love Love Love this version of a spot-it, find-it book. The story follows a child who is fighting going to sleep. Each page is a bit of the story and a request for the reader to find something within the the full-spread of "things". So much fun
November 15, 2021
Cuteness, has a lot more potential to add activities with all the cute little items on the page. Works as is, but an addendum with things to search for on each page would be so much better! It feels like a lot of cleverness going to waste here!
October 6, 2017
A cutely illustrated seek-and-find book bound to be popular with the I SPY and Where's Waldo fans
January 2, 2018
Holy God it hurts my eyes.
February 13, 2018
Nice interactive "find it" book. Kid has all kinds of choices and you get to help find the items in the myriad of items listed. In the end, it's all sheep, no fun there, just counting.
July 13, 2018
A young girl struggles with going to sleep because all day long she has billions of choices but at bedtime she only has one. Translated from French this book also delights by being an I Spy book.
March 15, 2019
Interactive look and find.
November 28, 2017
I saw this book on Janssen's round-up of the best I spy books. Each page is covered with tons of things and a small paragraph which ends in a question about something you have to find. I made Christopher read each page before we began our hunt. We could have looked at each small drawing all night, but we were on a schedule, so we kind of rushed through. We did find everything of course.
http://www.momsradius.com/2017/11/juv...
http://www.momsradius.com/2017/11/juv...
December 24, 2017
Its a Waldo or I Spy book with a tiny story attached. Nothing super in depth, but would be fun for kids who like to hunt in pictures.
Read
January 19, 2018Where's Waldo meets Busy Busy Word. Pleasing color pallet and another "lots to look at" book.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews