BUILDING TABLES ON TABLES: A Book About Multiplication

3 x 4, 3 + 5 + 4, 14 -- 2, (1 + 1 + 1) x 4; all are different names for 12, as readers are urged to ""tell your uncle or aunt"" with whom they are to play this ""game."" Trivett also introduces the terms product (3 x 4), triple product (2 x 3 x 4), common name (12), ""not common name"" (4 + 4 + 4), and a ""web game"" in which arrows are used to indicate substitutes and reverses -- then instructs readers on building tables on strips of cardboard which you then hang on a string across a room to make a ""simple computer."" Like other Young Math books this makes the subject look attractive, and it could also make the concept clear in the absence of a teacher (who shouldn't need it). But the series policy of integrating ""games"" and activities into the lessons becomes a parody in Trivett's unimaginative hands.