How many readers who make it through would go back for a second go-round? Hmm.
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)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4677-3489-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
This playful math series is overall a valuable addition to the chapter-book shelf.
Lexie and Lamar are practicing for their math tournament when they are abducted by a creature from another planet.
Fooz thinks that Lexie and Lamar are chickens, since that’s what they called each other just before she abducted them. Since chickens have “extremely low” intelligence, Fooz conducts a discreet intelligence test involving problem-solving and math to determine whether they are in fact not chickens. Solving problems under time pressure livens things up for Lexie and Lamar, who love to use numbers, as well as for readers. But proving their humanity is no help when they are kidnapped. Again and again, math, logic, and numbers get Lexie and Lamar out of sticky situations. Narrator Lexie never misses an opportunity to use numbers in storytelling (“three-inch trickles of sweat were dripping down my back”), making for a well-executed, funny (if hyperfocused) voice. Readers are subtly given opportunities to solve problems while reading. Full-page drawings and smaller spot illustrations break up the text in each chapter, depicting Lamar with brown skin and Lexie as white; both appear somewhat older than readers might expect. A depicted trio of three-eared rabbits looks unfortunately like stereotypical Native Americans. The math will be enough to draw some readers in while the action-packed story will keep the math-averse reading—and perhaps occasionally flexing their math muscles too. Book 2, Planet of the Penguins, publishes simultaneously.
This playful math series is overall a valuable addition to the chapter-book shelf. (Fiction. 7-11)Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4549-2921-5
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
A funny, sweet-natured tale about getting along despite differences.
Reluctant at first, a cat makes friends with the family’s new robot in this children’s novel.
Peeps, a fluffy white cat, notices her owner, Max, whose tan skin is a shade between his darker father and paler mother, opening a cardboard box. A new fort to play in! But what that box contains is a “ready-to-program Buddy Bot Y2K robot brain,” which Max attaches to a robot body constructed from spare TV and car parts. When Switches, as he’s named, clomps into Peeps’ life, she’s suspicious and resentful, not knowing what to make of his fluency in cat language. He’s a showoff, capturing her family’s attention, and besides, he stomps her cardboard fort. Switches, meanwhile, believes he’s made a new friend. Peeps decides to get back at the robot, so she takes advantage of his trusting nature to get him in trouble and locked in the garage. Peeps, realizing she doesn’t want to be mean, deliberately misbehaves so she can join Switches in garage exile and apologize. In the end, the two become friends. Giles, who has also written and illustrated the Fitting Out series of children’s books, subtly addresses children’s mixed feelings about newcomers to the family with understanding and humor. Peeps’ point of view provides some wonderfully comic moments, as with her ever-so-helpful routine that includes sleeping on freshly laundered clothes: “Her family would certainly be grateful for any cat hairs she left behind. After all, they did not have much hair of their own.” Giles’ whimsical illustrations add expression to the nonhuman characters; Peeps, for example, can be pleased, skeptical, or peeved. The drawings also contribute risible commentary, like when Switches and Max both draw Peeps with very different skill.
A funny, sweet-natured tale about getting along despite differences.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 102
Publisher: Birch Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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