The Little Man In the Map: With Clues To Remember All 50 States [Hardcover]

E. Andrew Martonyi (Author), Ed Olson (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

Learning all 50 U.S. states is easy when you learn from The Little Man In the Map! Asked by their teacher to find clues for memorizing the states, students begin to see imagesa hat, a shirt, a pair of boots formed by state boundaries. When they put some of them together, they're amazed to find the outline of a man standing in the middle of the map. Excited by their discovery, they draw a face and arms on him and create The Little Man In the Map, whom they nickname MIM. Their imaginations bring MIM alive, and with his help they discover the surprising roles all the states can play. Soon they can spot the elf, the playful dog, the spooky head, and all the others. This imaginatively illustrated story, narrated in rhyme by The Little Man In the Map, shows each state's part in its region and how it interacts with those around it. This makes learning their locations visual, easy, and fun.

MIM Awards as of 4/8/2009

Moonbeam Children s Book Awards

Silver Medal Winner Non-Fiction Picture Book

Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group

Silver Medal Winner Outstanding Book of the Year, Most Original Concept

2008 Next Generation Indie Book Awards

Finalist Children s Picture Book

Finalist Education/Academic

ForeWord Magazine

Finalist - Book of the Year Award

USA Book News

Finalist Best Book Awards

Eric Hoffer Book Awards

2009 Montaigne Medal finalist. (and on Short List)

Printing Industry of Minnesota

2007 Certificate of Merit for Print Excellence in Books

Chicago Book Clinic The 57th Annual Book Clinic

Honorable Mention School Publishing PreK/Primary with 4/C Internals (Won by Scholastics)

The Newberry Library

"Especially in the last decade, we ve really built up substantial holdings in the history of geographic pedagogy, and our professional development programs for teachers have become a fixture, so MIM has found a very appropriate home."

- Robert W. Karrow, Jr. Curator of Special Collections and Curator of Maps

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Little Man in the Map is an impressive undertaking and one that reflects excellent pedagogy. The use of rhyme, the reinforcement through visual cues, the clear structural breaks, and the reliance on a guide character all speak to effective teaching and learning... rhymes and visuals are really clever... I found the regular reviews and locator maps quite useful for tracking progress.

--Susan Schaffrath, Former President, McDougal Littell

MIM is an engaging program that students look forward to each learning session. It makes learning geography easier and exciting for students.

--Ann Marie Robles, fifth-grade teacher

The Little Man In the Map is outstanding! I... previewed, taught, reviewed and evaluated this wonderful program with my students.

--Kathy Moran,sixth-grade teacher

The Little Man In the Map was an excellent educational opportunity for my class. The students learned so much about the United States. --Kal DePaco, second- and third-grade teacher

About the Author

E. Andrew Martonyi, author, public speaker, trainer, and businessman, has traveled the world to give seminars to thousands of people. His love of travel was tested early in youth when his family crossed the Atlantic to land at Ellis Island. As a young man he drove across the US, where the Rocky Mountains, the deserts and the Pacific Ocean made him fall in love with the West. He moved to California where he lived on a boat for a while, writing poems of love and adventure. His wife, Irma, shares his enthusiasm for travel and the outdoors, and together they have hiked the Grand Canyon and camped in many states across the U.S. They continue to make their home in California.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Schoolside Press; 1st edition (July 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0978510046
• ISBN-13: 978-0978510046
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > Children's Books > Education & Reference > Atlases

More About the Author

E. Andrew Martonyi's
love of travel, constant
search for new things
to see and his granddaughter's
interest in
hearing about places
he has visited, inspired
him to study the US
map from a new angle.
What he discovered,
he now shares with all children to help
them learn the states of the USA.
Andrew is an author, public speaker,
trainer and businessman, and has
traveled the world giving seminars to
thousands of people. Travel began early
in his youth when his family crossed the
Atlantic by boat to land at Ellis Island.
As a young man, he drove across the
US, where the Rocky Mountains, the
deserts, and the Pacific Ocean made
him fall in love with the West. He
moved to California where, for a while,
he lived on a boat and wrote poems
of love, travel and adventure.
His wife, Irma, shares his love of travel
and the outdoors, and together they
have hiked the Grand Canyon and
camped in many states across the US.
They continue to make their home in
California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teaching Tykes Terrain, August 10, 2007

By 

Katie Jane Wennechuk (Calion, AR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Little Man In the Map: With Clues To Remember All 50 States (Hardcover)

When I was in grade school back in the early 70s, I learned American geography through rote memorization. As a result, if I were tested to write in all the names of the sates on a map of the US Today, I would probably get a C at best. E. Andrew Martonyi's delightful "The Little Man In the Map" has changed that for the children in my life. It provides charming clues which help kids learn geography by heart. Ed Olson's illustrations are enchanting and captivate young imaginations, making geography magical and fun.

I bought this book for my nephew's fifth birthday, along with some art supplies and candy. He ignored the other gifts and carried "The Little Man In the Map" around all day, even looking at it in front of the TV. My sister reports his fascination has not faded.

This book should be in every school across America. Buy it for every kid you know and take it to their teachers!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Little Man In the Map, April 19, 2009

By 

M. K. Mesa - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Little Man In the Map: With Clues To Remember All 50 States (Hardcover)

"A blank map of the U.S.A. plus your imagination are all you need to learn the states--all fifty in our nation."

A man in the map, a pack of schoolbooks, a mitten, a drinking cup, a longhorn chair and Old Man winter are just a few of the imaginative cues that Andrew Martonyi and Ed Olson have created to help children remember the shape and place of the 50 states.

Ed Olson has extensive experience with companies such as Walt Disney, Warner Brothers and Sony. This experience is evident in the quality of the illustrations in this book. His purpose, as stated on his blog is "to bring US Geography alive and let kids experience geography through their own eyes and imagination and make learning geography easy and fun."

I think my kids definitely agree. I have been using mnenomic based aids in our schoolwork over the last few years whenever I can find them. For kids with memory problems, they are very helpful. My nine year old daughter especially was quite taken with the imaginative illustrations.

The first section of the book is devoted to the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana. When viewed in isolation, they most definitely resemble a man with a hat. The remainder of the book is divided into regions -- Northeastern, Southeastern, Midwestern, South Central, Western, Alaska and Hawaii. I would study each of the regions separately, or to go along with a unit study.

I'll be happy to review this with my kids again. It definitely takes the "yuck" out of geography and I look forward to when they release the title for state capitals!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but not a "must have" for young children., April 10, 2009

By 

D. Parker (Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Little Man In the Map: With Clues To Remember All 50 States (Hardcover)

I'd been looking for homeschool materials on the U.S. map and found this book. My kids are very young, just 4 & 5 but I thought a rhyming book would be fun for them to start hearing about the states.

I think it's a bit much for younger grade school kids. I could see an older upper grade school age child getting much more out of this. The rhymes aren't all that easy to memorize or go along with, and some of the connections in drawings and "clues" are a leap for younger children to make. I didn't think all the clues and hints were entirely very clever either. I'll keep reading it to them and going over the pictures as their years go on. I think it'll be handy when they're snapping to more of the concepts this book uses, but truth be told I got farther with them memorizing states just with rote learning, pointing and naming and memorizing just like many of us did in school. I related states to where family members were born, shapes of the states that were easy to see, something that might be of personal interest to them about that state, etc. The rhymes and clues were just more to remember and they got a little distracted with the main objective. All in all, not a must have book for teaching young children IMO.