Bureau of Weights and Measures by Anne-Gaelle Balpe illustrated by Vincent Mahe

I have been wrapping books for our IBBY International Children's Book day event. The Bureau of Weights and Measures will be in one of our raffle book bundles but I wanted to talk about it here before I pop it into the parcel.

I ADORE this book. I am so excited that I have discovered it. Why?

• It's a book that has been translated, in this case from French. I always think books from other contexts and cultures have an extra wow factor.
• This is a book that explores emotions - a topic of importance to me.
• I love the retro colour palette of blue, orange, green and cream and the tall format.
• At it's heart this is a book about problems and solutions and it is also about repairing mistakes.
• Marcel and his son have a brilliant relationship.
• You could share this book with a young child 6+ and also with an older group because there is so much to discuss.

Here is the first page:

"My dad's name is Marcel Gramme. He is an engineer at the Bureau of Weights and Measures. Every day he confirms that one gram weights exactly one gram, that one metre is exactly a metre, that one degree of temperature is exactly one degree, and that three plus three still equals six."

It is true that there are lots of things in the world that you can measure and it is important that these measurements are accurate and reliable but what about things like sadness, smiles, love, jealousy and greed. How do we measure these?

Marcel is sure there must be a way so he works on some new measuring instruments and his son gives the units of measurement inventive and wonderful sounding names:

Smile - measured using a compass and measured in yippees, centi-yippees, milli-yippees
Sadness - measured using a cryometre and measured in sniffebels from three hundred to thirty giga-snifflebels.
Love - measured with a combination metronome and stethoscope and measured in kilopassion units.

Of course things don't quite go as planned and human foibles and failings take over. People start to complain that their partners, children and friends do not measure up.  Marcel and his son decide to ask everyone to return the new measuring instruments but rather than just dispose of them Dad has a brilliant idea. By the way did you notice the little joke in dad's name?

Here is a review with more details. Take a look at the art of Vincent Mahe.

If you want to create a mini theme around this book then these two titles would be absolutely perfect:

Teachers notes:  http://www.wilkinsfarago.com.au/Dad_teachers_notes.pdf