The Smallest Spot of a Dot: The Little Ways We're Different, The Big Ways We're the Same

by Linsey Davis, Michael Tyler, Lucy Fleming (Illustrator)

Overview

Now a New York Times bestseller! Using child-friendly language, this playful picture book explains how genetics make each person unique and celebrates how we are more alike than different and are all part of the human race. In The Smallest Spot of a Dot: The Little Ways We’re Different, The Big Ways We’re the Same, Linsey Davis, bestselling children’s author, Emmy-winning correspondent, and host for ABC News, together with co-author Michael Tyler, encourages children to find their own unique dot with sweet, rhyming prose.

”Only .1% of our genes make us uniquely who we are. We are 99.9% identical, alike, the same—equal. This book is 100% about that truth.”

Combining whimsical rhymes and Lucy Fleming’s engaging art, The Smallest Spot of a Dot is:

• An inspiring story of connection, equality, and acceptance
• Multicultural, multiracial children’s picture book that recognizes our similarities and our uniqueness
• Great for classroom use as children explore genetics, DNA, and individuality
• The perfect read-aloud for kids ages 4–8
• A unique gift for birthdays and holidays, or a back-to-school treat

 

New York Times bestselling author Linsey Davis is also the author of The World Is Awake, One Big Heart, Stay This Way Forever, and How High Is Heaven.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310749653
Publisher:	Zonderkidz
Publication date:	01/31/2023
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishing
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	24 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Linsey Davis is a New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning journalist. She anchors World News Tonight on Sunday as well as ABC News Live Prime, which is ABC News Live’s first-ever streaming evening newscast. She is a correspondent for World News Tonight, Good Morning America, 20/20, and Nightline and is also the bestselling author of several children’s books including The Smallest Spot of a Dot, The World Is Awake, One Big Heart, Stay This Way Forever, and How High is Heaven. Linsey lives in New York with her husband and son, who is her biggest inspiration. You can follow her on Instagram @linseytdavis.

Michael Tyler is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, writer and native Chicagoan whose other titles include The Skin You Live In and Mirror Face. He has partnered with Discovery Education on SEL and DEI curriculum for students globally, and has addressed forums for The King Center, Clinton Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Beyond Differences.  

Lucy Fleming, a New York Times bestselling illustrator, has been an avid doodler and bookworm since childhood. She never quite grew out of having her head in the clouds, daydreaming. She specializes in children’s book illustration where her love for designing quirky characters meets her passion for storytelling. Lucy lives and works in a small town in England with a cup of ginger tea in hand and her cat close by.

 

Editorial Reviews

01/01/2023

K-Gr 3—With a message celebrating our differences and our sameness, this title for young readers starts with a dot. Each dot represents a gene. Readers are told that we are all made of billions and billions of tiny gene dots. One of these billions is your special dot. It makes each person unique. "The rest of the billions of dots we discussed/ Are exactly the same inside each of us." Our uniqueness and our sameness are highlighted in a multitude of ways through the text and inviting illustrations including a diverse cast of children. The message of this text, that genetically we are 99.9 percent the same, is critical for children to know in a world that seemingly seeks to divide, categorize, and "other" people. VERDICT Useful for multiple lessons from science to social-emotional learning, this title simultaneously encourages readers to find and celebrate that which makes them unique while identifying the similarities that unite us all in a common human family.—John Scott

School Library Journal

2023-02-12
A rhymed celebration of human individuality within our genetic commonality.

In simple language, media personality Davis and Tyler (The Skin You Live In, 2005) highlight twin notions, one biophysical, the other more conceptual: We all share “billions and billions of tiny gene-dots,” but there is just one dot each that makes us who we are—“Your me-my-minedot is the who that is ‘You.’ It’s what gives us a hint and a colorful clue / About why you look the way that you do, and why your dot has your only-you hue.” Because that unique dot, the authors go on to claim, governs not only skin color, but facial features, eye color, food preferences, and behavioral tendencies, it actually represents not a single gene but entire chromosomal constellations and even perhaps some epigenetic influences. Still, if this leaves some confusion in its wake that will need later instruction to clear up, the point that for all our “different faces and bodies and names” we are “still 99.9% the same” is a good one to make early and often. Fleming sweetens the presentation even more with a thoroughly diverse cast of, mostly, romping, dancing, and playing children (some of whom use wheelchairs) with outsized heads and big, widely set eyes. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Fuzzy on biological specifics but sings a buoyant message about how they make us the same for all our differences. (Informational picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews