A Higher Geometry - Hardcover

Moranville, Sharelle Byars

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805074708 ISBN 13: 9780805074703

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2006

Synopsis

Anna loves math, and her boyfriend, Mike. Will she have to choose between them?

Anna Conway sometimes wishes her relationships would come as easy to her as math does. A natural math talent, Anna is at odds with what's expected of her as a teenager in the 1950s. While Anna aspires to leave her small town for college to study mathematics, her parents want her to follow the more traditional path of getting married and starting a family. Anna's never really thought of dating before, but when she meets Mike, their relationship takes off and goes further than she'd ever expected. Now it's up to Anna to make her future happen. But how will she choose?

In beautiful prose, Sharelle Byars Moranville explores the importance of believing in dreams in order to make a difference.

A Higher Geometry is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

About this title

About the Author

Sharelle Byars Moranville is the author of the acclaimed novels Over the River and The Purple Ribbon. She lives in West Des Moines, Iowa, with her husband.

Reviews

Grade 7 Up–Fifteen-year-old Anna is a math wiz. Unfortunately, mathematics was not a common pursuit of girls or women in the 1950s and the teen sees what pursuing a career in math has cost her teacher, Mrs. Ballard. While the story line begins by focusing on Anna and her desire to win over her skeptical parents, attend a math competition at a nearby university, and attend college, it takes a somewhat abrupt turn when she begins dating basketball star Mike Dillon. Her concerns about the relationship are foreshadowed in conversations she has with others about classmates who left school when they became pregnant, and in her discussions about her faith. By the end of the novel the focus flips back to the math competition. Readers are likely to enjoy the romance and period details, but some may lose interest when the strands of the story do not meld.–Kimberly Monaghan, formerly at Vernon Area Public Library, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gr. 8-11. Following Over the River (2002), Moranville offers another graceful story set in the rural Midwest after World War II. In 1959 high-school-student Anna is a brilliant young mathematician, but she feels that her male peers view her as "a poodle that could do cute tricks: charming, but of no real value in the world." Then Anna begins a romance with caring, artistic Mike, and as their feelings deepen, so does Anna's quiet determination to pursue her talents. Anna's authentic, first-person voice is as unadorned as the story's landscape, but Moranville creates poetry in the rich details: the cold war dialogue ("We've got to catch up with the Russians"); the private spaces where Mike and Anna talk frankly about sex and faith; and the male-dominated classrooms where Anna falls in love with math. "We're off the map," Mike tells Anna. "We're not where the world expects us to be." Readers will easily connect with the romance that's both thrilling and nurturing and with Anna's steady resolve to follow her passion for numbers and challenge a world of expectations. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805074708
• ISBN 13: 9780805074703
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224