THE WARLORD’S PUPPETEERS

The ingenious young hero of Warlord’s Fish (2002) and two earlier exploits again triumphs while taking in a bit of math. When bandits carry off an itinerant troupe’s chest of marionettes, Chuan creates new puppets from scraps of cloth and carved vegetables. As in previous meetings, Pilegard tucks in both cultural and mathematical snippets; Chuan’s artist-master informs him that proper proportion of head to body in Chinese art is 1:6, and in a final add-on, the author invites readers to make, then measure, sock puppets of their own. The square-headed human figures in Debon’s whimsical illustrations resemble the vegetable ones; readers will appreciate the humor, though the quickly told story definitely takes second place to the imbedded lesson. The exotic setting makes this an appealing alternative to Stuart Murphy’s MathStart series. (Picture book. 7-9)