This clever book and its delicate pen and ink and watercolor illustrations help conceptualize the idea of time for children, in gentle rhyming text ("How long is an hour? ...Run right through a sprinkly shower / Climb a tree and smell a flower / Pretend you have a secret power / That should nicely fill / An hour"). From a second to a year, there are plenty of examples here, and Hutchins brings seasons and birthdays in as well.

See also: If Pluto Was A Pea by Gabrielle Prendergast, Your Place in the Universe by Jason Chin, Lemonade in Winter by Emily Jenkins ( )

I loved this book! Time is a very difficult concept for young children to understand, and this book presents it in a way that is fun and easy to understand. Each unit of time is described in relatable units of measurement; for example, it describes a second as the time it takes to hiccup or give your mom a kiss. the book goes through seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, seasons, years, and a lifetime. The ending is super sweet, giving a heartwarming quality that a lot of books about math concepts are lacking. I would definitely share this book with students! ( )

This book has so much potential in the elementary or even head start classroom. It helps educators show children the meaning of time through how much time it takes for a second to pass, or a minute. If I were to teach Kindergarten I would definitely use this book for a math lesson on time. ( )

A Second is a Hiccup is a great description of time for young children and would be great for a kindergarten teacher to read to her class during a discussion of time to make the abstract concept of time make sense to young minds.

Genre: Nonfiction

Ages: 5-8

Class Activities: Ask the students multiple questions about what takes a certain amount of time. (What other activities take only a second? How many seconds are in a minute)

Great book for teaching students how to tell time.