Cool math by Tracie Young and Katie Hewett

 

 Last year, in the Before Time, I was asked for more math books, specifically for virtual and home students. Now, of course, there is even more need for this as math tends to be the subject most parents are most tentative about teaching. However, while I sympathize and want to meet my community's needs, I'm also very reluctant to purchase math curriculum. Aside from the expense, which is considerable, I'm either encouraging copyright violation or providing resources to only a few families using the materials.

My compromise has been to purchase more general math books and resources, so I was happy to receive a review copy of this title. One last caveat - while I personally enjoyed algebra, that time is long past and I am not particularly a math person, so I cannot speak to the accuracy of the book as a whole.

The introduction is a fairly dense paragraph that tries to explain why math is FUN. It... does not really do this, to be honest. What would be better would be to just jump in and browse through the book. It's full of facts about math, history, and lots of tricks and games. It includes the multiplication thing with your fingers (I always thought it was easier to just do it in my head than try to remember this method, but that's me) statistics of flipping a coin, how to figure out the percentage of a tip, palindrome numbers, and much, much more.

The book itself is a small volume, 6x8, and the text is fairly dense throughout. There are also sketches and drawings throughout, illustrating the concepts or adding interest to the pages.

Verdict: If you are looking for more general math books, this has a nice variety of information and is an inexpensive way to add to this area of your library.

ISBN: 9781843654483; Published March 2020 by Pavilion; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library