Math Man might be a barrel of fun, but he’s not going to be teaching readers much math. Marnie’s class is off to Mighty Mart to see a little math in action. Garth, a.k.a. Math Man, is a clerk with a talent for math. (A contemporary fantasy, obviously.) He races about the store, advising shoppers on their purchases: get a quarter of a watermelon, it fits in the fridge better; or to a mother—“There are four Dinkies in that box, ma’am. And you’ve got five kids. How about a family pack of ten . . . two snacks each?” By the end of the story, when the cash registers have gone on the blink and Math Man is adding colossal columns of figures in his head, readers will swoon at his command of all those numbers. Problem is, readers will not be able to do the same, nor do they get any inkling of the mechanics behind the math—a troop of mice play a cameo role by introducing equations into the marginalia, but without an explanation, the equations’ rationale goes begging. Math Man’s value and appeal lies in his enthusiasm, which Bush (Ferocious Girls, Steamroller Boys, and Other Poems in Between, 2000, etc.) conveys through exuberant, cornball illustrations full of mousy fun, but the best that can be hoped for here is a provocation to learn the meat of the math elsewhere. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-439-29308-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-059848-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
The creators of Punctuation Takes a Vacation (2003) sentence readers to a good time with this follow-up. Feeling left out after the children in Mr. Wright’s class thunder outside for a Field Day, the nouns and verbs left in the classroom decide to organize events of their own. But having chosen like parts of speech for partners—“Glue, Markers and Tape stuck together. Shout wanted to be with Cheer. So did Chew and Eat.”—it quickly becomes apparent that as opposing teams they can’t actually do anything. Depicting the Nouns as objects and the Verbs as hyperactive v-shaped figures, Rowe creates a set of high-energy scenes, climaxing in a Tug of Words and other contests once the participants figure out that they’ll work better mixed rather than matched. This playful introduction to words recalls Ruth Heller’s Kites Sail High (1998) and Merry-Go-Round (1990) for liveliness, and closes with several simple exercises and games to get children into the act. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-8234-1982-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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