Tell me about books where kids interact with numbers
March 5, 2022 5:22 AM Subscribe
Please tell me about picture books where kids (or adults, I guess) interact with numbers somehow. Like ideally anthropomorphized numbers. Like Numberblocks, but with kids. If you can't think of any such books (I can't), how about books where the plot is solidly math-based -- not just counting (e.g. The Doorbell Rang, Sir Cumference books). Title/author? Premise/plot? Gimme what you got.
Looking for fiction (even if with a didactic hidden purpose), not instructional books.
Looking for fiction (even if with a didactic hidden purpose), not instructional books.
I love Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School by Louis Sachar.
Also this list has some good suggestions.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 6:04 AM on March 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also this list has some good suggestions.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 6:04 AM on March 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Missed "picture" books, sorry, deleted!
posted by eponym at 6:10 AM on March 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eponym at 6:10 AM on March 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Kate Hosford's Infinity and Me is a lovely book with different metaphors & visualizations of infinity. (It's a narrative picture book, not a didactic math book.)
posted by miles per flower at 6:14 AM on March 5, 2022
posted by miles per flower at 6:14 AM on March 5, 2022
the phantom tollbooth might have a few illustrations that fit this bill (although more of an older kids book than a picture book)
posted by wowenthusiast at 6:41 AM on March 5, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by wowenthusiast at 6:41 AM on March 5, 2022 [4 favorites]
We enjoyed Introductory Calculus for Infants, although I guess it’s more about letters/mathematical concepts than strictly _numbers_. That site I linked to (Maths Through Stories) might generally be a good resource as well?
posted by twigatwig at 6:43 AM on March 5, 2022
posted by twigatwig at 6:43 AM on March 5, 2022
The Number Devil is about a kid who hates his math class and then has a series of dreams where the Number Devil introduces him to a whole bunch of math concepts like prime numbers and triangle numbers in a fantastical and fun way. It's not for five year olds, but for a ten year old who is really into math, its superb.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:46 AM on March 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:46 AM on March 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
You may get some ideas from the winners of the Mathical Book Prize, awarded every year to outstanding children's books on mathematical themes, including many picture books. (Disclosure: I co-chaired the jury for the first few years.)
posted by escabeche at 6:54 AM on March 5, 2022
posted by escabeche at 6:54 AM on March 5, 2022
7 Ate 9, by Tara Lazar and Ross Macdonald, is a picture book mystery about anthropomorphic numbers. It's very, very clever.
posted by yankeefog at 7:08 AM on March 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by yankeefog at 7:08 AM on March 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
Greg Tang makes a lot of mathematics-based story-picture books. We had and enjoyed Math Fables.
posted by tchemgrrl at 10:32 AM on March 5, 2022
posted by tchemgrrl at 10:32 AM on March 5, 2022
Not quite what you're asking for, but Flatland is a classic story of a square who suddenly learns about a third dimension. Sphereland pushes that concept into four dimensions.
posted by chbrooks at 10:47 AM on March 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by chbrooks at 10:47 AM on March 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
As a kid (and still as an adult, really) I loved The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat. There are definitely anthropomorphic numbers, also talking shapes and polyhedra, and all sorts of cool math concepts, often somewhat off the beaten path.
Written in very short "chapters", maybe a few pages, not a ton of plot.
posted by february at 11:21 AM on March 5, 2022
Written in very short "chapters", maybe a few pages, not a ton of plot.
posted by february at 11:21 AM on March 5, 2022
How Many Jelly Beans is a great fun book on visualizing how much a million is. It is a picture book with a back and forth between a brother and sister (and their dog) about how many jelly beans they could eat, if they ate this many per day or this many per week. Along the way it shows dots for the number of jelly beans. Eventually the pages fold out to show 1 million jelly beans. Very fun.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 1:42 PM on March 5, 2022
posted by Winnie the Proust at 1:42 PM on March 5, 2022
Penguins! One a day, for a year! Funny math problems. 365 Penguins.
posted by orange (sherbet) rabbit at 11:02 AM on March 8, 2022
posted by orange (sherbet) rabbit at 11:02 AM on March 8, 2022
Math Curse is a classic.
One Grain of Rice is mathy, but not specifically about interacting with numbers.
Seconding How Much is a Million and 365 Penguins!
posted by tangosnail at 2:12 PM on March 8, 2022
One Grain of Rice is mathy, but not specifically about interacting with numbers.
Seconding How Much is a Million and 365 Penguins!
posted by tangosnail at 2:12 PM on March 8, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
- Socrates and the Three Little Pigs by Mitsumasa Anno & Tuyosi Mori (also published as "Anno's Three Little Pigs"). Fun with combinatorics.
- How Much is a Million? by David Schwartz & Steven Kellogg. Fun ways to conceptualize how big large numbers are.
In researching links for these books, I also came across MathsThroughStories.org, which might be worth looking through.posted by Johnny Assay at 5:51 AM on March 5, 2022 [2 favorites]