Annika Riz, Math Whiz

April 1, 2014
Annika loves numbers. Annika and her friends each have their own special talents, and Annika's is math. She looks forward to math class the way Kelsey loves reading and Izzy loves running. But while Annika likes reading and physical exercise, her buddies hate math. When others in the class do not know an answer or are daydreaming, Annika side-whispers the answer to help them out of a bind. Annika and fellow third-grade math whiz Simon are excited to learn that the library is running a sudoku contest, and Annika sets out to practice as much as she can. Mills keeps the situations light and amusing, inviting readers into Annika's number-filled house, where the tablecloth is printed with numbers and the magnets on the refrigerator are numbers and even the dog is named Prime, and introducing them to Mr. Boone, the overenthusiastic principal who takes a seat in the carnival dunking booth. Shepperson's black-and-white drawings extend the text nicely; kids will chuckle at the kitchen chaos as the girls make cookies for the bake sale and at the interruption-hating Mrs. Molina as she tries to control math class. Math lessons are embedded gracefully into the plot, making it an easy tie-in for teachers looking for accessible real-world math problems. For number lovers and phobics alike--this bighearted series has something for everyone. (Fiction. 7-10)

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April 1, 2014

Gr 2-4-Third-grader Annika Riz loves math as much as her friends Izzy Barr and Kelsey Green dislike it. While she is attentive during math, her friends are easily distracted, so she whispers answers to help them avoid agitating their stern teacher. During the week of the school carnival, it seems like there is nothing else that any of the other students can think about, but Annika is secretly focused on winning the public library's citywide sudoku contest. She believes that if she can beat all of the city's third-graders, her friends will see that math is cool after all. After some disappointments along the way, Annika's love of the subject helps her save her class's carnival booth and convinces her that her attempts to help her friends may have done more harm than good. As in Kelsey Green, Reading Queen (Farrar, 2013), Mills has developed characters who are realistically flawed and friendships that are supportive throughout. She does an excellent job of demonstrating why Annika's cheating is problematic without any heavy-handed moralizing. The occasional illustrations are perfectly paced and a nice supplement to the text.-Amanda Augsburger, Moline Public Library, IL

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