Wednesday, October 24, 2012

You're Tickling My...err, Math!


Mathematickles!
Written by Betsy Franco
Illustrated by Steven Salerno
Simon & Schuster, 2003
31 pages
Poetry

            As I was at the Jacksonville public library looking for a completely different book when I found Mathematickles!  When I read the cover, I thought of my best friend’s mother who is a math teacher and thought it would be a good book.  I checked it out and really enjoyed it.  This book is a poetry book written in mathematical terms about the seasons.  The book starts out describing Fall and goes through all four seasons and things that one does during those seasons. It ends in the late summer with the young girl sleeping in her bed with a… Well, I can’t tell you everything about the book.  Stop by your local library or your favorite bookstore and check it out.

            The cartoon illustrations are done in water color and gouache.  The illustrations cover both pages and really have a strong use of color to make the seasons pop off the page.  The illustrator used brown, orange and purple for Fall and blue, white and pink for Winter.  The other seasons are depicted well along with how the text is laid out.  Text is on top of the illustrations as part of the picture itself.

            This book would be good for third through sixth grade.  It will take any reader a moment to understand what the book is about and how the use of math and the seasons are incorporated.  The use of graphs and other mathematical words may confuse a younger reader.  This book will be good for a math lesson for the obvious reason.  It would be good for an Art lesson also to show the students how they can incorporate multiple subjects together.  A language arts lesson will work well also with the poetry and to explain to the students that they don’t have to write rhyming poetry all the time.  At this time this book has won no honors or awards.


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