Easy Magic for Beginners

Featuring activities by a nationally acclaimed math educator and the author of The I Hate Mathematics Book, a whimsical mathematics skill-builder finds a number of ants helping themselves to a family picnic. Original. Reading level, 2.5.

Kindergarten-Grade 2?Two beginning readers with rhyming texts and colorful illustrations. The math concepts are evident but do not overpower the stories. The concluding activities can be used in a variety of ways with different age groups. Through a cumulative rhyme, The 512 Ants presents the concept of doubling numbers. A little girl and her caregiver start off on a picnic and "1 ant" sees them through his telescope. Then two ants appear, then four?until 512 ants "had a picnic with goodies to eat, down in their ant hole on Sullivan Street." Merrell's illustrations are humorous and imaginative, especially in the way he shows the ants using various parts of the picnic fare to help get food out of the basket. Monster Math presents a day in the life of 12 different monsters, from their 6:00 a.m. wake-up through their day at school, until bedtime at 8:00 p.m. The author includes quarter-hour times, which are not often found in books for this age group. Two clocks appear on each page, one digital and one with hands. Hartelius's monsters create a very diverse, amusing school population. She has also provided some interesting details in the background illustrations. Readers will chuckle at some of the funny faces on the teapots and candlesticks and the strange animals the monsters take for show-and-tell. Two books with definite child appeal.?Mary Ann Bursk, Bucks County Free Library, Levittown,
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 1^-2. A little girl watches as a series of ants (a mathematical series, first 1, then 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.) liberate the goodies from her family's picnic basket and carry them away. Bright, cartoonlike art will keep children's interest despite the purposeful, pedagogical underpinnings of the story. Why the child lets the ants abscond with everything from cheese to fudge cake to take-out Chinese food is never explained, but it's hard not to sympathize with the industrious ants, who work hard to turn the picnic on Sullivan Street into a joyous underground feast. Like others in the Hello Math Reader series, this book ends with several pages of activities related to the theme (in this case, doubling numbers). Carolyn Phelan