SonshineLearner Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 Hey There, I'd love to hear what others read for good "living math" type books, for their elementary or secondary aged students. Please, everyone contribute :) And, though I have a son... of course, I would want books for both genders.... My oldest daughters would have loved good math stories ;) As I read "that other post" I saw the suggestion about the book "What's Your Angle Pythagoras?" that Bill had read.... and wanted a list of the (other) books you love for your son. I have Greg Tang's and a few others. My 8 year old loves math, and though I haven't done "formal" math with him each day... we talk about math quite a bit. I'd love all your suggestions :) :bigear: Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jen3kids Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 Have you visited the Living Math website? You'll find everything you need there. Julie has a living math Yahoo group too. http://www.livingmath.net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane in NC Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 The Number Devil is just a wonderful book for an upper elementary/early middle school aged student. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 Penrose the Mathematical Cat is a big hit here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RanchGirl Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 (edited) Our Favorites: Math for Smarty Pants, Spaghetti and Meatballs for All, and lots more by Marilyn Burns Murderous Maths series by Kjartan Poskitt Grapes of Math, Math-terpieces, etc by Greg Tang there are many more but I can't think of them right now, will come back to add them later. These are on our list to read soon: Pythagoras books by Julie Ellis Multiplying Menace by Pam Calvert The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky (she wrote the Ga'Hoole series which my older son loved!) Sir Circumference (and the.... series) by Cindy Neuschwander Also if you search "math adventures" on amazon you get a lot of books by different authors, there are tons out there! Edited April 21, 2011 by RanchGirl added more! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 Agreed that The Number Devil is amazing. Also the Sir Cumference books and the Penrose books are cute. For even younger kids, I did a blog entry on some of my favorites awhile back. I especially have been appreciating Loreen Leedy lately, we used her book about graphs as a jumping off point for graphing fun not long ago and, of course, her book Measuring Penny is a math picture book classic. While it's an older, out of print series, I also really like the Young Math books. Some of them are very good and cover some complex concepts - more like upper elementary age. I'm really into living math books. Every time I think I know all the good ones, I find new ones, so I feel like there are a lot of them out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Margo out of lurking Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Have you visited the Living Math website? You'll find everything you need there. Julie has a living math Yahoo group too. www.livingmath.net :iagree: Julie's great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 I wish I could do a cut and paste from the s/o thread (not that you haven't seen those Carrie) but with the system database weirdness at the moment I can't get to it. I would like to highly recommend the math books by Japanese artist and mathematician Mitsumasa Anno. There are a large number of these and they are marvelous. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivka Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Second the recommendation for Anno books! I often find my daughter curled up with Anno's Math Games, just reading for fun. We also really loved The Cat in Numberland, which is about the concept of infinity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NanceXToo Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Thanks for this thread :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted April 23, 2011 Share Posted April 23, 2011 Since the other thread was abandoned and the database is back (and I'm lazy :tongue_smilie:) I will cut and paste a post from another thread. There are a number of very interesting books by the Japanese artist/mathematician Mitsumasa Anno that were especially interesting. They rage from a very introductory Counting book to a variety of math game books. These are very highly esteemed (by me) and my son really like these. The Number Devil was very good, at the end some of the math was a little beyond my son so we will return to it. The "What's Your Angle, Pythagoras?" (read this week) was undoubtedly inaccurate on a "historical" level, but quite fun and got my son very interested in angles and in solving problems based on the Pythagorean theorem (which is pretty cool). We have enjoyed Greg Tang. It has been awhile, but there are the Sir Cumference books. There was some slight thing I dimly recollect being slightly off in the book on pi. Phantom Tollbooth doesn't exactly fit the genre, but sort of. I want to re-read Archimedes and the Door of Science with him. I actually read it to him years ago (but he had not really acquired language skills yet, so I'm not sure how much he picked up ). Not strictly a "math" book, but good. There is the book The Librarian who Measured the Earth about Eratosthenes. There is one (whose name and author slip my mind, perhaps someone else will remember?) that is picture based with dots and is about visualizing "one million." There must be others. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin's Song Posted April 24, 2011 Share Posted April 24, 2011 There is one (whose name and author slip my mind, perhaps someone else will remember?) that is picture based with dots and is about visualizing "one million." There must be others. Bill Ten Black Dots? (Just looking through the books on my Amazon wishlist :)) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparkle Posted April 24, 2011 Share Posted April 24, 2011 We've enjoyed Exploring the World of Mathematics by John Hudson Tiner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Margo out of lurking Posted April 24, 2011 Share Posted April 24, 2011 There is one (whose name and author slip my mind, perhaps someone else will remember?) that is picture based with dots and is about visualizing "one million." It's called "A Million Dots." :D In addition to many of the books already listed, my kids also enjoyed books out of Time-Life's I Love Math series (surprisingly!); anything by Stuart Murphy, Loreen Leedy, Marilyn Burns, Greg Tang (must have been mentioned here already but I've forgotten). There are countless good, living math books; and many great ones! I wonder if you can find the old Cyberchase shows on youtube or anywhere else on the internet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gratia271 Posted April 24, 2011 Share Posted April 24, 2011 I don't think anyone has mentioned Mr. Base Ten Invents Mathematics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted April 24, 2011 Share Posted April 24, 2011 I wonder if you can find the old Cyberchase shows on youtube or anywhere else on the internet? Is there an old Cyberchase show? I know of the kids one of course. They have that on netflix download. My kids like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted April 24, 2011 Share Posted April 24, 2011 There is one (whose name and author slip my mind, perhaps someone else will remember?) that is picture based with dots and is about visualizing "one million." Bill It's called "A Million Dots." Now why didn't I think of that? :D Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Margo out of lurking Posted April 24, 2011 Share Posted April 24, 2011 Is there an old Cyberchase show? I know of the kids one of course. They have that on netflix download. My kids like it. "Old" being relative. My kids used to watch it 5-6 years ago. :D Well, I just looked it up. Apparently, it's still a current PBS show. :blush: <blush> Now why didn't I think of that? You did make it easy for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stripe Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 CHAPTER BOOKS FOR OLDER KIDS: The Man Who Counted by Malba Tahan refers to a huge number of famous math puzzles. I absolutely adore Singh's Fermat's Enigma. There was an episode of Nova on this, too. PICTURE BOOKS: Everything by Anno. Demi's One Grain of Rice (and others about the same concept) is fun. David M. Schwartz's books (on a million, and about measuring) are nicely done, in my opinion. I can't stand the Sir Cumference books, but I can't say exactly why. The same thing that irritates me about most math books, the sort of faux-mathematical enthusiasm. I heard about the book You Can Count on Monsters on NPR, and checked it out. It was sort of interesting but not exactly filled with a story. Lots of pictures of monsters to demonstrate how the numbers from 1 to 100 could be said to look. The author is a mathematician. ALSO - To me, anything about Fibonacci numbers is fascinating, and I loved Marilyn Burns' math books as a kid. Incidentally Alexander McCall Smith has a short novel for children called Calculator Annie. I think she falls asleep on top of her father's calculator and then becomes an arithmetic whiz? Not exactly educational reading, but perhaps it qualifies as math + funny + book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonshineLearner Posted April 26, 2011 Author Share Posted April 26, 2011 Thanks Stripe, I actually edited my other thread.... but... right when I pushed "send" the whole problem with the site happened... must have been me ;) Anyway, thanks for listing out your books here ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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