Inch by Inch

Lionni, Leo. Inch by Inch. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1960.

Inch by Inch is another of Leo Lionni’s picture books for which he was awarded a Caldecott honor. In Inch by Inch, Leo Lionni used paper cut outs on a white background for his art work. It would be easy to reproduce the art style for a classroom activity. Because this story is about an inch worm measuring, Inch by Inch could also be tied into a math lesson on measurement.

The story also involves some intelligent problem solving as the inch worm devises ways to get out of being eaten. First he measures all of the different birds. Finally, he measures the song of the bird who is going to eat him – just measuring away from his prey.

I paired Inch by Inch with Swimmy for my first graders in a lesson that compared the character, setting, problem, solution, and endings of the stories.

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