A Second Is A Hiccup

by Hazel Hutchins, Kady MacDonald Denton (Illustrator)

"How long is a second?"

"A second is a hiccup--the time it takes to kiss your mom, or jump a rope, or turn around."



The newest book by acclaimed picture-book creators Hazel Hutchins and Kady McDonald Denton explains units of time in imaginative terms children can A second lasts as long as a hiccup; a week is seven sleeps; and a year is the time it takes to grown into new shoes!



Any parent who's been asked, "How long is a minute?" or any kid who's wondered, "What does 'an hour' mean?" will enjoy this smart, simple, and surprising book.

Genres: Picture Books, Mathematics, Childrens, Nonfiction, Poetry, Storytime, Science

40 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Born and raised in southern Alberta, Hazel is the author of over forty books for children. Her work covers a wide age range – from picture books for the youngest set to novels for older grades – and delights in enterprising characters, interesting facts, gentle humour and the natural warmth of friendship and family. A popular presenter at schools and libraries across Canada, Hazel's books are also found in translation in many corners of the world.

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book summary: This is a book about time. It puts into perspective how long is a second, minute, hour, week, month, year,etc. While rhyming, it shows all that can happen during that time and that they all fit together. Kids can now understand the different lengths of time there are and how to measure them.
Grade level: K-4
Appropriate classroom use: This is a great book to include in a lesson about time. The students can then, based off the book, write down how long an hour or week is to them and the details and all that can be done during said time.
Indv. students who benefit: Those students who cant grasp that a week is less than a month or a year is more than a month or an hour is more than a minute.
Small group use: Students can make a time chart together based off of this book and give examples.
Whole class use: This is an appropriate book to read out loud. I think this book would be good as a bell ringer or even a closure of a lesson.
Related books: Any children books about time, any books by the same author or illustrator, books like "What Time is it? Mr. Crocodile."
Multimedia connections: Available as hardcover and paperback.

[Nancy Roach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A second truly is a hiccup, and then gives examples like the time it takes to kiss your mom. Then goes into talking about how long is a minute, then an hour and what you can do to your fill your hour, also what you can do to fill a day, and it continues to go until filling a year. It is cool how the book progress from learning about a second to what you can do in a whole year. The seasons change and many different holidays fill a year. This is a great book and can really help children who are struggling with the concept of time. It is good to give examples that they can relate with in the real world, like a second is related with a kiss to your mom. It was overall a very sweet story and would definitely have this is the classroom for younger elementary students to understand days, weeks, and months; and the concept of time.

[Chinook · Rating 5 out of 5]

We borrowed a book called Read Me a Story: Canadian Favourites from the library because it contained this story, which was in the girls’ summer workbooks as a reading list suggestion.

And I’m quite glad we did. I’m not sure if we’ve really read a book that tried to explain lengths of time to children before but I thought this one did an excellent job. The bit about a month being the length of time it takes for a scrape to grow new skin particularly fascinated them.

It’s a really lovely book, overall, about the passage of seasons and at the end, childhood.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the title says, this is a book about time. In ways that children can understand, it describes lengths of time from seconds to a year. The pictures are cute. Some children are sure to enjoy it. I may try it as a listening center and see how engaging it is in that mode.

[Danielle Keeler]

This book is a great tool for introducing students to the concept of time and words that represent time like now, later, today, tomorrow, etc. Additionally, this book can be used to reinforce phonemic awareness, mainly silent e words. I would also use this book to talk about months of the year, days of the week, etc.

[FM Family · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book serves a great purpose, and I think does a good job of explaining time. My two year old loved it. But if she hadn't it would have gotten 3 stars because the rhyme and meter were all over the place, unnecessarily so!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting with a second, this book proceeds to describe how long different lengths of time are by what you can do during those same lengths. From one second to one year, the illustrations are beautiful. This is a good read aloud for the early elementary crowd.

[Natalya Botero · Rating 4 out of 5]

2007. A great book talking about time and relating how long time is to something people do. Hence the title. This is a great way to learn more about time and comparisons. Great for the younger ages, I would love to have in my classroom if I am in a younger classroom.
Fiction

[Summer D Clemenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever had a little one ask you to describe how long time is? A Second is a Hiccup by Hazel Hutchins gives kids a reference to time in ways most kids can understand. This book has a nice rhythm and rhyme and the illustrations by Kady MacDonald Denton are precious.

[Ms Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://smithlitblog.wordpress.com/20...

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute way of explaining time

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

The passing of time from a second, minute, hour, day, week, month, and year all explained in rhyme. A lot can happen as time passes you by.

[Stephanie Rossman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book to help kids understand units of time.

[Camille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely, rhythmic, poetic story about time. Sweet bedtime story. My 6 year old enjoyed it.

[Addie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Time storytime pick. Cute, maybe advanced for 15 month old.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary (CIP): Units of time are explained in imaginative terms children can understand: A second lasts as long as a hiccup; a week is seven sleeps; and a year is the time it takes to grow into new shoes.

REVIEW: Time is a mysterious thing for children to understand and know. Well, this book will bring it all home by the great examples from the everyday life of a child of just how long a second, minute, hour, month, or year is. Ink and watercolor illustrations are lively and whimsical, adding to a great way to picture and learn about time. The answers to each question of “How long is …?” are written in rhyming phrases that amount to poems. The book and the concept of time would work well in storytime and for discussion.

SLJ: Starred review. "The lyrical, rhyming text answers deceptively simple childhood questions with great flair."

Kirkus Reviews: Positive. "Imminently appealing watercolor illustrations, replete with warmth, complement the text perfectly. An excellent read-aloud and a great choice for any child learning about time.

[Ashley Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book introduces the concept of time and how we use it in our daily lives. Essentially, it's explaining how everything we do takes away time. It's shows how big time is in our lives through cute examples like singing and kissing your momma.

I liked the book and the examples of how we used our time. It really made me stop and think about how everything I do takes up time, and how I should be focusing my time on this earth.

In a classroom, this book would be perfect for 1st graders. Time is a hard thing to understand when we're young, so this is important to help them realize how impacting it is.

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I dismissed this book as too babyish to share with adults, but seen in a Zen light, it's a really nice poem about the passage of time. It's the kind of story that restores my faith in the cycle of life when I'm feeling out of the cosmic loop. And because it has such nice rhythm and meter, I was even able to perform it as Spoken Word poetry along to several different types of music for some of my clients. In general, though, I'd recommend it highly for young children.

[Taryn Loyd]

This book is about the concept of time, and various things you could do within the constraints of time. For example, one of the things they do in the book, is they hop sixty times in a minute.

I would read this book at the beginning of a time unit. I would get the students to attempt doing some of the things within the time constraints, such as hop 60 times in a minute. I feel as though it would be a good introduction when learning about how long a second, minute, hour, etc. is.

[Lindsey Rutledge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book to discuss time with your students. It shows them how long a second, minute, and hour is. It goes all the way up to a year. Students will also be able to recognize the examples that they use the book. You could also through out some reall life questions, like "How long do you think it takes to...........?"

[Tywanna Robb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent text to use to teach time. It gives children a real life connection to how time works by suggestion that second lasts as along as a hiccup, a week is seven sleeps, and a year is how long it takes to grow into a new pair of shoes. Children will easily be able to relate to that and gain a better understanding of time.

[Dorothy Carder · Rating 4 out of 5]

The illustrations in this book I really liked, but what it was aimed for seemed like it would be a bit confusing for a child to learn time this way. I think it would be better for an upper-elementary school student who already has a slight grasp of time. I think the book gave generic (and sometimes confusing) ideas of how long certain amounts of time were.

[Angela Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about time: seconds, minute, hour, day, week, month, and year. This book would be great to introduce students to the concept of time. I like how it gives different things that can be done to take up a specific amount of time. The students could write a blog about what they could do in an hour? A day? A year?

[Sarah Ashburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. Not only does this book help with phonics it also helps children understand time. I think that many children struggle to grasp what certain amount of times are and this helps them. This book could not only help a student learn to read but the teacher could also teach a math lesson after this. Great learning tool!

[Curriculum · Rating 5 out of 5]

A concept book about time with some fabulous explanations:
'A second is a hiccup or the time it takes to kiss your mom, or jump a rope or tunr around . . . How long is an hour? If you . . . climb a tree and smell a flower, pretend you have a secret power, that should nicely fill and hour'.

[Takeisha Hannor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is great for kindergarteners. It introduces them to think using math questions. It addresses how many days in a week, second, month, year and words to help build vocabulary. I would really recommend this book to a friend to help with children who are struggling in math.

[Amy Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rhyming book about time and time measurement and everything that a child can do in a second, an hour, a day, a month, and a year.

[Kristy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Darling book! Especially when I have three little girls always asking how long a minute is!

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably my second favorite nominee out of this year Chickadee's...to be honest, I haven't been that impressed with any of them except Velma Gratch. Nominated 2008-2009

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for teaching little ones about time. It introduces seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, etc. Very cute.