What’s faster than a jet? Or bigger than a whale? And have you ever wondered how many vertebrae are in a giraffe’s neck?

These and myriad other fascinating questions are the focus of Faster Than a Jet, Bigger Than a Whale: An Illustrated Guide to Measuring Our World, a wonderful nonfiction book for readers age 7-12.  Filled with factoids about which creatures sleep–not to mention poop–the most and least, this illustrated oversized volume covers a wide range of topics, all having to do with measuring the most and the least of natural and human-made phenomena.

Well-organized and with an appealing layout, Faster than a Jet… flows quickly from subject to subject, never dwelling long enough to bore young minds. Yet it still packs an amazingly dense amount of information onto every page.

Even for a jaded adult reader, all this is nonetheless fascinating. For a young reader–for whom so much is still a brand-new wonder–this type of book is like catnip. And it’s often the gateway to a lifelong interest in a given topic, not to mention the inherently intriguing umbrella of measuring and numbers. Although some might be tempted to call this a book about trivia, I’d hesitate to use that term, as it trivializes the importance of its contents.

So what IS faster than a jet? What’s bigger than a whale? And how fast and big are they in the first place? Check out pages 64-65 and 36-37, respectively, to find out, as I’m certainly not going to pass on any spoilers!

Faster Than a Jet, Bigger Than a Whale: An Illustrated Guide to Measuring Our World
Written by Andrea Minoglio
Illustrated by Bethany Lord
Translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar
ISBN: 9783039641017
Upcoming, February 3, 2026, Helvetiq

You can buy a copy here* or find a copy of it at a library.

*Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission at no cost to you. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Award-winning opera singer Nanette McGuinness is the translator of over 140 books and graphic novels for children and adults from French, Italian, German and Spanish into English, including the much-loved Geronimo Stilton Graphic Novels, as well as Tiki: A Very Ruff Year (nominated for the 2023 Eisner and Harvey Awards) and Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War (2023 GLLI YA Translated Book Prize Honor Book, 2023 Mosaic Prize winner, 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalist and 2023 Harvey Award nominee). Accolades have also gone to her translations of Up in the Blue Sky: Journey from the Earth’s Surface to Outer Space (2025 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection), Ellie in First Position (2024 ALA Top Ten Graphic Novels for Children), Magical History Tour: Vikings and Magical History Tour: Gandhi (both 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalists), Luisa: Now and Then (2019 Stonewall Honor Book; 2020 GLLI YA Translated Honor Book; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2019) and California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before the Mamas & the Papas (2018 Harvey Award; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2018).