Uma’s got a new pair, you see, and wants someone to notice them. Swiatkowska’s illustrations do the same, while simultaneously balancing it with whimsy, as she is wont to do in her artwork (for instance, Uma and friend racing around an infinity racetrack with a rooster running close behind).Īnd it’s all framed with some red shoes. Hosford brings this abstract notion of indefinite-great-numbers-of-something and unlimited-extents-of-the-somethings-of-our-lives into the world of the concrete. Indeed, Uma realizes she can’t think about infinity without pondering the notion of forever, so she then begins to wonder which things she could do forever: Could she be eight years old forever, but more importantly, would she want to be? Could she lick an ice cream cone forever? It can be understood, one of the school’s lunchroom employees suggests to Uma, by imagining cutting a tiny piece of noodle in half forever. Perhaps it’s a giant number that just keeps growing maybe it’s the lemniscate, or infinity symbol (“an eight that fell over and took a nap”), as a racetrack or it could be thought of as not unlike a family tree. She asks her friends and family for their thoughts on the matter and is met with a variety of ideas, all brought imaginatively and cleverly to life by Swiatkowska. “How could I even think about something as big as infinity?” “I started to feel very, very small,” she says. When the book opens, a young girl, named Uma, sits and stares at the stars, wondering how many could possibly be in the sky. (I am still clueless about the universe’s end, and if I ever find out the answer, I doubt I’ll be able to report back here.) In Infinity and Me, which will be released by Carolrhoda Books next month, Kate Hosford (author) and Gabi Swiatkowska (illustrator) explore this notion - that something can exist with no limits.

Children think about such abstract concepts, and many of us grown-ups find them difficult to explain.

(In between my 45s and ruminations on space and utter boundlessness, I watched an episode or two of The Price Is Right.) If I wasn’t sitting and listening to my stack of 45s with my trusty record player at my side (think: Peaches & Herbs and Donna Summer), I could probably be found sitting there having my mind blown, wondering if the universe just falls off or if there’s a dividing line of some sort that points to hell-if-I-knew-what. I have very distinct memories of wondering about this. And, if it did, what it could possibly look like. And how the universe might not have an end. How could I even think about something as big as infinity?”Īs a child, I used to sit and think about infinity.

How many stars were in the sky? A million?Ī billion? Maybe the number was as big as infinity. I was too excited to sleep, so I went outside and sat on the lawn. “The night I got my new red shoes, I couldn’t wait to wear them to school.

Infinity and Me by Kate Hosford