Who Would Win?

"My son Elliott came across the Who Would Win? books a year ago on a spinning rack at a nearby library. Since then, they have accounted for more than half of the reading we do together, and a good part of the "reading" he does by himself. Even though we've read all 31 books in the series (so far), Elliott keeps demanding we go back to the library, as if they might grow on the rack like combative fruit."

"Most of the books are slim paperbacks with more pictures than text. They pit various animals against each other: Killer Whale vs. Great White Shark; Lion vs. Tiger; Grizzly Bear vs. Polar Bear. Each describes its fighters in simple but scientifically accurate terms, and then hypothesizes an encounter in the wild that inevitably, sigh, leads to conflict."

Elliott, a four-year-old, repeatedly requests the Who Would Win? books and often predicts the winners. The series consists of slim, picture-heavy paperbacks that match animals against each other with simple, scientifically accurate descriptions and imagined encounters that typically end in conflict. An Ultimate Rumble subseries stages single-elimination tournaments among 16 related creatures, such as pterosaurs, with one eventual winner. All 31 books in the series have been read, and the books follow a uniform format calibrated to appeal to young boys. The books drive repeated library visits and occupy a large share of parent-child reading time.

Read at The Atlantic