The most magnificent thing

by Ashley Spires

Hardcover, 2014

Status

Available

Collection

Publication

Toronto, ON ; Tonawanda, NY : Kids Can Press, [2014]

Description

Juvenile Fiction. Picture Book Fiction. Humor (Fiction.) HTML: A little girl and her canine assistant set out to make the most magnificent thing. But after much hard work, the end result is not what the girl had in mind. Frustrated, she quits. Her assistant suggests a long walk, and as they walk, it slowly becomes clear what the girl needs to do to succeed. A charming story that will give kids the most magnificent thing: perspective!.

User reviews

LibraryThing member pataustin
A regular little girl who loves to tinker with stuff and make things decides to make the most magnificent thing "easy peasy." (Love the accessible kid friendly language). With her dog as her assistant, she gathers supplies and sets to work. Of course, translating ideas to a real, functional,
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invention isn't as easy as she thought and she experiences frustration almost to the point of giving up but not quite. There's a wonderful subplot to this story: the relationship with the diverse neighborhood, young and old, black and white, able-bodied and the lady with the walker. I love the illustration and text where the neighbors discover the young inventors discarded attempts and repurpose things. The subtle sense of community could be emphasized in discussing the book, which would get kids to dig beneath the story and the central character.
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LibraryThing member mcnicol_08
This books offers vivid illustrations of character emotions. It also introduces some excellent vocabulary and verbs. The story does seem to have a theme of perseverance as the girl does not give up on her invention even though it takes her several attempts and plenty of aggravation. This would be a
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great book to tie in to science, technology, or math.
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LibraryThing member gakers16
This book, The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires, is a story about a girl who sets out to make the most magnificent thing with her canine assistant. She knows in her head how she wants it to look but does not quite know how to make it. After many failed attempts, she feels defeated and quits.
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After a walk and some time to cool down, she realizes that she can use the best parts of all her failed attempts to compile the most magnificent thing. This is a story about persistence and dedication to implementing ideas and the importance of failure.
I love this story and the way it supports dedication and paints failure in a positive light.
This is a book I would use with my students to encourage hard work and persistence. You can integrate this with engineering to teach the importance of trial and error.
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LibraryThing member melissarochelle
Read on September 19, 2014

Another good one to inspire little makers. The font does make this one a little tricky to read, but overall a good story!
LibraryThing member jessicasolis6
This story is about a little girl trying to make the most significant thing. She tries and fails and tries again. She gets mad. In the end she notices that some of the fails are things that actually work out. In the end she made the most magnificent thing.
LibraryThing member sweetiegherkin
This book is about an unnamed "regular girl" who wants to invent and make "the most magnificent thing," although we aren't clued in until the end about exactly what that is. With her best friend dog as an 'assistant,' she sets to work tinkering, but she gets increasingly frustrated when it won't
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turn out as desired. After cooling down some, she plans out how to make the most magnificent thing and this time is able to execute it to satisfaction.

I absolutely love this children's picture book for so many reasons. It's not in the least bit didactic, but it covers a lot of important lessons, including being a good friend, persisting in a task, thinking creatively, and managing strong emotions. The fact that a young girl - specifically a "regular girl" - is seen doing engineering tasks is a fantastic antidote to the hundreds of passive damsel-in-distress stories and other more subtle gender inequalities present in children's literature (and sadly, literature for adults as well). The illustrations present a diverse neighborhood and little added extras to the text, like images of the dog chasing a squirrel and neighbors finding the girl's beta prototypes useful.

All in all, this is an excellent addition to a home or classroom library with preschool- and elementary-age children.
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LibraryThing member Joscellin
A little girl loves to make things, but when she tries to make her greatest creation yet, she almost gives up.
LibraryThing member Sullywriter
A perfectionist little girl realizes that creating the thing she envisions is not as easy as she thinks it will be.
LibraryThing member Kristinewaind
The Most Magnificent Thing is a story of a girl and her pet dog assistant that seek to invent the most magnificent thing. This story is about the journey of completing a goal. She goes through many trials and errors then becomes very frustrating. After calming down she understands she can do this
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and her previous tries are not too far off! The illustrations are very cute and the story has a good message about perseverance that kids would enjoy to read.
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LibraryThing member misspider
What a wonderful and outstanding picture book! My son and I both loved the story of the little girl and her furry faithful assistant, who are set on inventing 'The Most Magnificent Thing'. Of course, the invention of something magnificent takes some trial and error - but if you don't give up, you
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can achieve something truly great. The message told with this story is a very important one for allchildren: if things don't work out immediately, do not give up but keep trying. However, the author wrapped this lesson in a wonderful story that will appeal immediately to little readers, using a good dose of humor - and a really cute little dog.

The illustrations in this book worked perfectly together with the story: the background was only drafted with some black on white pencil strokes, while the things in the foreground very full-colored and with lots of detail to explore. Especially the scene where the girl and her dog walk along the long line of their failed attempts is impressively captured, and we had to scroll back and forth repeatedly to compare all the invented stuff and identify the possible pieces used to put them together.

A really outstanding and original children's book - highest recommendation!

(Thanks to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for a copy of the book, all opinions are my own)
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LibraryThing member AmandaMel
A little girl, with help from her dog, sets out to build the most magnificent thing. She struggles with anger and frustration when things do not go according to her plan. This is a strong book to show the power of perseverance. Could be used as a mentor text for descriptive language, especially
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verbs.
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LibraryThing member maggie1961
I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
I am not sure exactly what age group this book is supposed to appeal to. Being it's a short picture book, a young child should be the market this book is aimed at however there is very little colour to attract children, the
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illustrations are somewhat cute but I didn't care much for them.
In addition, the vocabulary is not what a young child would understand. There were phrases and words that were way beyond a young child, I think half of the reading time would be explaining what everything meant which takes away from the story.
Yes, we can get the message about not being a quitter but in my opinion I don't think a child would remain interested.
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LibraryThing member DBerkwits
An amazing story about a girl who makes the most magnificent thing. This is a terrific book to use when teaching growth mindset and perseverance.
LibraryThing member Whisper1
This is a charming book about a girl and her dog. Determined, motivated with a stubborn personality, the girl sets the goal of making the MOST magnificent item. Accustomed to working with her hands and creating objects, the bar is set higher.

While not knowing just what the most magnificent thing
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is, she feels that creatively she will come to the conclusion and will be highly successful.

Frustrated, after many futile attempts, she gives up; she takes a break, and then returns to a successful end product.

The illustrations of Ashley Spires always make me smile.
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LibraryThing member kbuffum13
The possible science topic for The Most Magnificent Thing could be at the start of the engineer domain. This book allows for flexibility in the specific topic and more about the emotional side of engineering specific to the improvement stage. Also letting students have a plan to step away and not
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get frustrated with their invention. In the book the girl gets frustrated until she walks away and is able to see what works in her previous trials. I think this is an important thing especially if students are working a group so that students are not fighting out of frustration. I also like this book because they have a female character as the lead. This shows students that females create inventions and magnificent things.
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LibraryThing member BethWal94
This book is very inspirational and really focuses on the trial and error process. I think this would be a great book at the beginning of the year to spark creativity and trial and error. She shows perseverance, which is a great thing to be teaching kids of all ages. So I would definitely share
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this book with my students!
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LibraryThing member zzshupinga
ARC provided by NetGalley

One day a young girl and her very best friend, who just happens to be her dog, comes up with an absolutely wonderfully perfect idea. She...is going to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing ever! She knows just how it will look and how it will work. All she has to do now is make
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it and that’s easy! She does it all the time. But this time...this time is different. Every time she makes it, it doesn’t work! And she gets mad. She gets so mad that she quits. Will the world never see the most magnificent thing ever? Her best friend works hard to make sure that her dreams are given every chance possible.

This short and simple, but charming book is a great tale for young readers as it offers a great look at perseverance and creativity. Even though the young girl is unnamed, its easy enough for readers to feel like they either know her or are her, as we’ve all experienced the frustration and challenges of ideas and plans not working out the first time around. Readers have a chance to feel the frustration and anger that she does, as they are vividly depicted in the illustrations. Even more importantly though, it encourages us that it is ok to make mistakes and that everything doesn’t have to work out the first time around. The young girl tries numerous times to make her idea before she gives up and after taking a brief break she comes back to find that just because they weren’t what she was looking for, it doesn’t mean that it was a failure.

Even better though is the language that is used. We get fantastic action verbs as the young girl “tinkers and hammers and measures” and so on. Not only does this help young readers learn new vocabulary words, but it is also a great chance to segue into science lessons and explain how these words help create things.

This is a great book for readers young and old alike. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
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LibraryThing member imtanner2
This is an awesome little picture book about a little girl who wants to make the most magnificent thing in the world. She has a plan but it doesn't quite work out the way she has planned. Her assistant (her dog, who is SO adorable!) offers strategies to help. It's going to be a great addition to my
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school library, because this is an awesome book to talk about persistence.
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LibraryThing member kimkimkim
Thank you Net Galley and Kids Can Press for granting my wish.

I enjoyed this book and especially the illustrations. I believe this book can provide an important teaching tool for young children who are afraid "to not get it right". It emphasizes the importance of that old adage "if at first you
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don't succeed try, try, try again" and if you never get it perfect that is OK. There is humor and a canine assistant to help this little girl see her vision become good, better and then best of all doing it for your best friend. An original and charming read.
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LibraryThing member amassingale
The story is about a little girl who is trying to make the most magnificent thing ever, but she keeps getting frustrated and destroys her progress over and over. But in the end, she goes back over her work and realizes that when put together, it really does make the most magnificent thing.
LibraryThing member Kaethe
Loved it.

Library copy
LibraryThing member jennybeast
Good story telling about imagination, and building, and not giving up.
LibraryThing member collinshapiro
This book follows a creative girl as she tries to perfect her "magnificent" thing. She grows more frustrated with each creation- and then grows angry and explodes- giving up. As her rage subsides, she notices each thing that had something "wrong" with it had many things "right"- inspiring her to
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rebuild her magnificent thing. In the illustration, we see that passerbying people see great purpose with many of her "discarded" creations.
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LibraryThing member lycomayflower
A little girl who likes to tinker has an idea for the most magnificent thing. She goes about making it, but it all comes out wrong. So she quits. And then she tries again and overcomes the problems she encountered the first time. A nice message, great illustrations, and really nice text that
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includes a lot of vivid verbs. Sending this to one of the nieces for her birthday.
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LibraryThing member lydia1879
Well, this was just totally delightful.

I love seeing little girls in STEM (or STEAM) and would totally purchase this for my classroom. This is about a little girl who sets out to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing. And it has such lovely illustrations but also very good 'sciencey' verbs for the little
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person in your life.

I like that it really showed the scientific process -- first we had diagrams, then many prototypes until finally, finally, after a lot of hard work, we came onto the most magnificent thing. A lot of the time if kids want to build things, they'll just build them, and that's fine, but when they're doing something scientific, they need more than just the idea in their head -- they need something concrete and on paper that they can refine.

With determination, perseverance and after a short tantrum, this clever little girl really does go on to build the most magnificent thing.
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Language

Original publication date

2014

Physical description

24 cm

ISBN

1554537045 / 9781554537044

Barcode

101

Lexile

L
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