One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale - Softcover

Demi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0590939998 ISBN 13: 9780590939997

Publisher: Scholastic Trade, 1997

Synopsis

Artwork inspired by traditional Indian miniature paintings - including a four-page gatefold - is "visually striking." - Publishers Weekly. "While there are other versions of this folktale available, none match Demi's for authenticity, illustrative grandeur, and textual clarity." - School Library Journal, starred review

About this title

Review

Exotic, beautiful, and instructive, this "mathematical folktale" by author-illustrator Demi emerged from her love of India. The narrative and the evocative illustrations combine to create a real sense of the culture and atmosphere of this romantic land.

It's the story of Rani, a clever girl who outsmarts a very selfish raja and saves her village. When offered a reward for a good deed, she asks only for one grain of rice, doubled each day for 30 days. Remember your math? That's lots of rice: enough to feed a village for a good long time--and to teach a greedy raja a lesson.

From Kirkus Reviews

In artwork inspired by Indian miniatures (though lacking their exquisiteness), Demi (The Stonecutter, 1995, etc.) fashions a folktale with far-reaching effects. The raja of a rice-growing village orders his subjects to deliver to him the bulk of their harvest; he will keep it safe should a famine occur. A few years later the harvest fails, and so does the raja: ``Promise or no promise, a raja must not go hungry,'' he intones. When a young village girl, Rani, returns to the raja some rice that had fallen from baskets laden for his consumption, he offers her a reward. Her request is seemingly modest: a grain of rice on the first day, two grains the next, four grains on the third; each day double the rice of the day before, for 30 days. The raja, though, doesn't grasp the power of doubling. Day 21 garners 1,048,576 grains of rice; on the last day it takes fold-out flaps to show the herd of elephants necessary to convey the rice to Rani, who feeds the masses and extracts from the raja a promise to be more generous. This gratifying story of the disarming of greed provides an amazing look at the doubling process, and a calendar at the end shows how the reward simply grew and grew. (Picture book/folklore. 5-8) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Scholastic Trade
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0590939998
• ISBN 13: 9780590939997
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 34