Picture Book of the Month: Math Curse

February 2005

Math Curse

By Jon Sciezka

Illustrated by Lane Smith

Publisher: Picture Puffins

I've always loved Lane Smith's illustrations, and Jon Scieszka's wacky sense of humour. In combination they rock, especially in "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf" which exposes the real villains of the piece. (Will feature it here one of these days)

In "Maths Curse", the pair show that numbers are more than just a sum of their parts - Ha, Ha! But seriously, this is one crazy book.

Math problems here read something like this: "You have 10 things to do, but only 30 minutes till the bus leaves. Is there enough time? You have 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants - can you make 1 good outfit?"

And "If you want two pieces of pizza do you slice two-thirds of a pizza pie, one-third of a pizza pie or two pieces of pizza?"

I Love it (i'm bad at Maths and I like the way this book humours my aversion to the subject) and so does my son who's very good at Maths but claims to hate it. Together we can just have a laugh and not take numbers so seriously.