[knc1]

The small binary:

Dynamic section at offset 0xa04 contains 48 entries:
  Tag        Type                         Name/Value
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libMagickCore.so.4]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libMagickWand.so.4]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libtiff.so.3]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libc.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libjpeg.so.8]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libfontconfig.so.1]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libfreetype.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libpng16.so.16]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libexpat.so.1]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libXext.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libXt.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libbz2.so.1.0]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libxml2.so.2]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libz.so.1]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libpthread.so.0]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libSM.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libuuid.so.1]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libICE.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libX11.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libxcb.so.1]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libXau.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libXdmcp.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libdl.so.2]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libm.so.6]
 0x0000000f (RPATH)                      Library rpath: [/usr/local/lib]

Note: The above IM convert is only present in the factory_<dev>_<rev>_initial firmware packages.

The large binary:

 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libfreetype.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libpng16.so.16]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libz.so.1]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libm.so.6]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libgcc_s.so.1]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libpthread.so.0]
 0x00000001 (NEEDED)                     Shared library: [libc.so.6]
 0x0000001d (RUNPATH)                    Library runpath: [/mnt/us/linkss/lib:/home/niluje/Kindle/CrossTool/Build_PW2/lib]

Note: The above IM convert is installed as part of the screensaver add-in.
(And NiLuJe's build system is leaking the build path into the runpath.)
While it is off of the kindle, do:

strip --strip-unneeded <filename>

That should down-size it.

So this second one is bigger because all of the external libraries listed in the first but not listed in the second are already built into the convert binary.