Skip to main content

Five Faves: Stories about Math

By

 Are you looking for fun ways to build an interest in math without having to look through boring informational books? Try one of these stories about math:

Friends Beyond Measure
By Lalena Fisher
New York: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2023. Picture Book.

If you are looking for a fun, easy way to talk about graphs with your kids, this is my new favorite book on the subject. Each page has a different tool used to measure, from time lines, to bar graphs, to Venn diagrams. Homeschoolers could make a week's worth of lessons from the content on its pages. And to boot, it's a sweet story about the love friends have with each other and the difficulty when a friend moves away.

Again, Essie?
Written by Jenny Lacika
Illustrated by Teresa Martinez
Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge Publishing, 2022. Picture Book.

In this story, Rafael needs to protect his toys from his younger sister. So while she's taking a nap, he decides to build a barrier between her and his room. He gathers objects from all over his house to build the barricade. It teaches kids about spatial reasoning as he has to flip and turn items to get them to fit. If your kids enjoy this book, it's part of a whole series of storytelling math books that include concepts like patterns, counting, and problem solving.

The Bark Park
Written by Lori Haskins Houran
Illustrated by John Joven
New York: Kane Press, 2022. Easy Reader. 32 pages.

This story mixes community service and math together for a fun adventure. When Lila and her friends notice that elderly Mr. Romero doesn't have anywhere to sit at the park, they decide to wash dogs in an effort to raise money for a bench to put in the park. Along the way they learn not only about helping others, but also about percentages.

Talia's Codebook for Mathletes
By Marissa Moss
Somerville, MA: Walker Books, 2023. Fiction. 224 pages.

If you like your math with a heavy side of puzzle solving and code breaking, this book is for you. Talia has high hopes for middle school until her best friend, Dash, decides that he can't be seen spending all of his free time with a girl. At least she still gets to see him at mathlete practice, even if that does mean that she has to put up with a mean team captain. That is, until she decides to create her own, all-girl, mathlete team to compete against the boys. This book has a graphic format similar to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. So if you like your chapter books with pictures interspersed, this is a great choice for you.

Grasping Mysteries
By Jeannine Atkins
New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2020. Fiction. 305 pages.

This book is a good mix of fiction and nonfiction, telling stories about real women who loved math. It's written in verse and split into sections about different women including Florence Nightingale and Katherine Johnson, so it can easily be skimmed as well as used to learn about specific people. For those who want to encourage girls to participate in STEM fields, or learn about the real women in these fields, this is a great choice.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stand Tall by Joan Bauer

By DeeDee
Stand Tall By Siena Siegel by Joan Bauer Putnam, 2002, 182 pgs Realistic Fiction Tree is 12 years old and over 6 feet tall. That would be great if he were a basketball player, but he is not. Dealing with his unusual size is not Tree's only challenge. Tree's parents have recently gone through a divorce, and his grandfather has had his leg amputated as the result of an old Vietnam War injury. The strength of this book is the characterizations. All of the main characters are dimensional and sympathetic. Bauer sets the characters in real and often funny family situations. Best of all is the character of Tree. He is boy with a heart to match his stature. This is a great book for boys or girls ages 9-12, as a read aloud or for individual reading. This book could also be a good Rx book for children whose families are going through divorce, or for anyone who feels like they don't fit in.
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The New Girl

By
The New Girl By Cassandra Calin New York: Graphix, 2024. Comic. 261 pages. 12-year-old Lia and her family have just moved from Romania to Montreal, and she's doing her best to keep up with the changes. But, she's homesick. She misses the rest of her family, her friends, and her favorite Romanian treats. She doesn't speak French and her English is shaky, which makes it hard to make friends, even in her international immersion class. And she's dealing with super painful menstrual cramps every month. But before long, Lia starts to hit her stride. She befriends the other bilingual girls in her class, she gets a spot as the artist for her school's magazine, and even has a new crush -- Julien. Though she may be the new girl, Lia is starting to fit in. This slice of life graphic novel is an adorable choice for middle grade readers and young teens. Lia is a likable protagonist and readers will have little difficulty relating to her adjustment to school. The text speaks to a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Cincinnati Lee, Curse Breaker

By
  Cincinnati Lee, Curse Breaker By Heidi Heilig New York: Greenwillow Books, 2025. Fiction. 291 pages. Thanks to Cincinnati Lee's no good, dirty rotten, artifact stealing great great great grandfather, Cincinnati's family is now cursed and Cincinnati feels like it's up to her to break the curse. Which involves trying to steal the artifacts back from museums that her grandfather robbed from graves and archeological sites around the world and return them to their countries of origin. But when Cincinnati's first artifact stealing mission goes awry, she decides it might be more effective to steal an all-powerful artifact herself that she can use to break the curse - The Spear of Destiny. Unfortunately her race for the spear will pit her against art smugglers and thieves intent on finding the ancient artifact themselves. If you are looking for an Indiana Jones read-alike, this is the perfect for you! Heavy on the adventure with similar levels of mysticism to those seen in th...
Post a Comment
Read more