One Grain of Rice by Demi

Demi. (1997). One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale. New York: Scholastic Inc.

Grade Level:
I would recommend this book for students in grades K- 4.

Author Credibility:
Demi has written over 130 children’s books. A traditional version of this tale is also known as “Sissa and the Troublesome Trifles.” It can be found in Trickster Tales by I.G. Edmonds.

Summary:
This folktale takes place in India. There was a raja that ruled a province in India. The people in this province were rice farmers. The raja told the people they had to give him nearly all of their rice. He would store the rice and when a famine hit the land they would have food to eat. So the people did as the raja said. They only kept enough rice to survive on. This went on for years.
Then a famine struck the land. The raja decided he could not give the people any rice because the raja had to have enough to keep up his lifestyle. One day the king decided to throw a party. He sent elephants to the storehouses to get rice. Along the way a village girl named Rani saw rice falling out of a hole in one elephant’s basket. She gathered the rice as it fell, and returned it to the raja. The raja was so impressed he wanted to thank her, so he asked what she wanted. She told the raja she wanted one grain of rice. The raja told her he should reward her more plentifully than that. Rani said to double the rice you gave me the day before for thirty days. The raja agreed. The rice quickly added up to over a billion grains of rice. Even as the numbers increased the raja vowed to keep his promise. Eventually the raja ran out of rice. Rani declared she would give the rice to the hungry people. She even gave a basket to the raja.

Standards:
Math:
Numbers and Operations
Problem Solving
Measurement

Illustrations:
The illustrations in this book are paintings done by Demi. She was inspired by traditional Indian paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The artwork was done by Chinese brushes. The colors stem from a variety of paints and inks.

Access Features:
Table – from one grain of rice to one billion

How I would use the book in the classroom:
This book would be excellent to help children with adding. The numbers in this book add up so quickly. One thing I would ask students while reading is do they think Rani made a good deal with the raja. You could also use this book to introduce some aspects of Indian culture.

My response to the book:
I enjoyed reading this book. The illustrations were beautiful. At first you would think Rani did not make a good deal, but she did. She outsmarted the raja, and was able to provide rice for the hungry people. I thought the chart in the back would be very useful.

Related Texts:
*Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar by Mitsumasa Anno
*Spaghetti and Meatballs for All by Marilyn Burns
*How Much is a Million? By David M. Schwartz

Other:
This book consists of 35 pages. It has short text and is easy to read. The cover is decorated with colorful Indian style drawings. A red boarder separates the illustrations on each page. The text is to the side of the illustrations. The type font for the title and the author’s name is elaborate. They are also placed on top of a background of gold. Gold backgrounds are used often throughout the book.