Mind-Boggling Numbers

July 25, 2016
Ms. Mary Math, “the go-to wiz for mind-boggling math questions,” answers questions related to volume, distance, weight, and other topics, framed as letters from curious kids. A Florida letter-writer, “Grounded in Groveland,” asks how long it would take to send a birthday card to everyone on the planet; the answer, after some quick multiplication, is 222 years. The off-kilter scenarios proposed, which are entertainingly captured in Patton’s quirky cartoon graphics, and the off-the-cuff tone Rosen adopts for the answers keep these unconventional story problems from ever feeling like homework. “That’s a sweet thought,” says Ms. Mary of the birthday card question. “One problem: your task’s impossible.” Ages 7–11.

September 1, 2016

Gr 1-4-Factoids, math, and silly stories combine in this epistolary-style offering. Each of the 12 spreads depicts a "story problem" in the form of an imaginary child's letter to Ms. Mary Math. Her response answers the question and gives additional fun facts, while on the opposite page is a whimsical illustration of the subject at hand. The pictures serve more as zany, slightly chaotic imaginings of the story problems rather than functional diagrams. Exaggerated, cartoonish images feature mathematical references and children. Ms. Mary Math's letters do describe how she solves the problems but are richer in exclamation points and comparisons to familiar objects (the volume of a milk carton, the height of the Statue of Liberty, etc.) than in step-by-step guidance. Equations and mathematical processes are mostly confined to the "Do the Math" section in the back matter, which also includes metric conversions; definitions for area, speed, and volume; and further resources. Consider pairing this title with delightful math storybooks like Andrea Menotti's How Many Jelly Beans? or Jon Scieszka's Math Curse, or with Laura Overdeck's "Bedtime Math" series for fun word problems that kids can solve themselves. VERDICT Amusing but not essential, this book may work best in the hands of enthusiastic parents, educators, or XKCD fans who wish to inculcate a love of numbers in the next generation.-Sarah Stone, San Francisco Public Library

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 15, 2016
It is not so much that the numbers boggle as that they simply fly by.Great-sized numbers are undeniably awesome--like the digits in pi--but they are also undeniably abstract. Yes, it is fun to grind the brain cogs for a bit, but the game soon cools. Rosen does try very hard here to keep it real: all kid characters are 4 feet tall and weigh 60 pounds to make for a standard unit of measurement, and he puts them in settings that at least some readers can relate to: mowing the yard, writing a birthday card, in a swimming pool. How many school days and glasses of lemonade to fill the pool (Olympic-sized pool; 660,000 gallons; 8-ounce glasses; premixed lemonade; 600 kids helping = 98 glasses poured in by all students for 179 school days, for a total of 10.5 million glasses of lemonades)? Each question is posed in a letter to Ms. Mary Math and then answered in a breezy, exclamation-mark-laden narrative piece (with longer explanations in the back of the book, along with metric conversions and concept definitions), while the entertaining Patton works the mixed-media pedals, featuring a multiracial mix of children in fanciful scenarios. Still, it all feels a bit forced, and the dizzying number of numbers in Ms. Mary Math's responses can make the eyes cross. How many readers who make it through would go back for a second go-round? Hmm. (Informational picture book. 7-11)

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