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

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Memory Spinner

By
The Memory Spinner Written by C.M. Cornwell New York : Delacorte Press, 2025. Fiction. 281 pages. Fantasy is a genre that I don't often read. When I finish a good fantasy book, I always ask myself why I don't read more of them! This book made me ask myself that exact question. Lavender is a young girl who is struggling after the death of her mother. Her father doesn't like talking about the family's loss, and Lavender feels very alone in knowing how to grieve and cope with her feelings. Making the grieving process even harder for Lavender is the fact that she is struggling to hold on to memories of her mother.  The family runs an apothecary shop where Lavender is an apprentice. She has dreamed of her apprenticeship for a long time, putting in a lot of work to show her father she is a valuable asset. Unfortunately, while working side by side with her father, Lavender starts to notice that memories of her mother aren't the only thing she is having a hard time recallin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Kareem Between

By
  Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024. Fiction. 324 pages.  Kareem loves football and as he gets ready to start seventh grade he dreams of someday becoming the first Syrian American NFL player. Seventh grade is not off to a great start for Kareem, after football tryouts don't go as he had planned, his best friend moves away, and his mom returns to Syria to help bring his sick grandfather to the US for treatment. So when Austin, the quarterback and coach's son, offers to talk to his dad and get Kareem on the football team in the spring, if he will cheat and do his homework for him, Kareem agrees. Kareem really wants to fit in at school and he is desperate to find a friend, but deep down he knows that doing Austin's homework isn't the right thing to do. And to make things harder, Kareem's mom asks him to be a friend to Fadi, a Syrian Christian refugee. He knows he should stand up for Fadi and help him adjust to the new school,...
Post a Comment
Read more