I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean

A giant squid is proud that it's the biggest thing in the ocean, and when this turns out not to be true, cheerfully proclaims, "I'm the biggest thing in this whale!"

A giant squid proudly compares himself to shrimp, clams, crabs, jellyfish, octopus, and a shark. When confronted (and eaten) by a bigger creature, he still finds a way to boast. This book’s delightful humor is brought to life with bright, playful illustrations.

Curriculum: a great book to use for comparisons of size and other early math skills in a preschool or kindergarten class.

Sherry, K. (2007). I'm the biggest thing in the ocean. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.

The story is about a giant squid that brags about being larger than the other sea creatures. In my opinion, this book is funny and comprehensive. First, I liked the giant squid as the main character who is confident and logical. It understands its size and mentions many times that it is larger than any marine animal except for the massive whale that ate it. I found it to be a little hilarious that the squid was mistaken about the whale, but then it sees every sea creature mentioned throughout the story. In the end, the squid declared that it is larger than anything in the belly of the whale. The point of view is another reason I was interested in the story. I understood that the squid was the first-person character. In each page, the show more squid kept saying "I'm," which is the pronoun of the first-person character. As the story's big idea, size category is an essential influence on helping readers understand what object is small or large. It was also about identifying various sea animals such as crabs, sword fishes, dolphins, and octopuses. show less

Love it! When reading this book aloud to kids, we give the main character a "snap" attitude that the students really enjoy. Great for comparing and contrasting, studying ocean life, discussing character traits like humility vs. bragging, etc.

Used for Under the Sea Tons of Fun program for 2nd and 3rd graders. This was definitely too young for the 2nd and 3rd graders - it might work better for the preschool crowd; they'd relate better to the repetitive "I'm bigger than this. I'm bigger than that. I'm bigger than this other thing," but I'm not sure they'd get the joke. The illustrations, done by the author, are cute enough and the punchline's fine, but there's just not enough to the book. It ends up feeling slightly boring or like it would go over the head's of those young enough to appreciate the brevity of the plot (such as there is). The author's note on how the illustrations were created however is a hoot - "The art was completed in three layers, each seperated by glass show more that was pried from the windows of shipwrecked pirate ships...and finally, an ink layer consisting of 100% fresh squid ink." I'd rather hear that story frankly. show less

This is a great little undersea adventure that makes a terrific read aloud story. The main character is a giant squid, who spends his day cataloging everything that he's bigger than. Then he runs into a whale. I won't spoil the fun, but the ending is just right.

Giant Squid brags about being the biggest thing in the ocean; bigger than shrimps, jellyfish, crabs, etc., until he meets up with a whale. Everyone will enjoy the clever ending where Squid, always the optimist, still manages to look on the bright side. Good intoduction to size relativity and the concept of big/little and bigger/smaller. Loved it!