Reviews
by David Macaulay
Introducing an off-beat guide to math from award-winning author and illustrator David Macaulay.
Math is all around you…if you look closely enough! From computer games to bridges, shopping malls to game shows, mathematics truly is everywhere. David Macauley’s terrific troupe of curious mammoths will lead you through the basics of math, including numbers, calculation, geometry, measurement and so much more in this highly original guide to math for kids aged 8+.
In Mammoth Math, not only will you learn the essential principles of math, you’ll enjoy learning about them too! From start to finish, the mammoths are your guide as they seek to understand the math!
These intrepid demonstrators will go to incredible lengths to educate and entertain, as they wrestle with adding or subtracting numbers, measuring angles, creating a pie chart, solving equations, and much more.
Observing and recording the mammoths’ behavior is best-selling illustrator David Macaulay. Renowned for his ability to explain complex ideas with simple genius, Macaulay captures the oddball humor of his subject matter, making Mammoth Math the perfect introduction to math for young learners to love.
Discover math as you’ve never known it before, with:
– Fun-filled illustrations show Macaulay’s mammoths exploring mathematical ideas demonstrating key mathematical principles in unusual and amusing ways.
– An action-packed alternative to dry, unappealing math textbooks.
– Supporting panels contain diagrams and extra information to aid understanding.
– The book is divided into chapters, each focusing on a different branch of math
The ideal math book for all children aged 8+ as well as for reluctant math learners who don’t think math is for them, Mammoth Math includes a highly original and unique approach to the subject, with over 60 topics covered in total, including numbers geometry, measurement and operations. Encompassing all-new illustrations featuring Macaulay’s trademark mammoths, familiar to readers of The Way Things Work – a best-selling book of David Macaulay’s, which has sold over 3 million copies worldwide!
Join the math journey today! Solving the problem is only one mammoth ride away!
Recommended for ages 7-11 years.
Hardcover, 160 pages.
DK Publishing.
Printed in China.
Caldecott Medal award winner and MacArthur fellow David Macaulay has illustrated and written over 25 books for children. His most famous work includes The Way Things Work and Cathedral. His illustrations have been featured in popular, nonfiction books combining text and illustrations explaining architecture, design, and engineering.
Macaulay lays out spread after spread of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, yes, but also Fibonacci sequence, scaling, Venn diagrams, Pascal's triangle, telling time, magic shapes, rounding, estimates, data handling, codes, using a compass, and more. To describe it is to diminish it. The book must be entered, pored over, absorbed, shared, flipped through, and experienced. It's madness: the cast of shrews is in the thousands. It's brilliant: Macaulay gives children true life skills for estimating that will have them doing their taxes in no time. And it's funny: if the goal is first to entertain, any browser will be quickly hooked. Most of the information in the volume is instantly digestible and absolutely unforgettable, and that's saying something. Back matter includes for reference multiplication grids and tables, fractions, decimals and percentages, units of measurements, geometric shapes and angles, glossary, index, mammoth on the moon, signs and symbols, solutions to problems in the text, exhausted shrews, and a space alien.
VERDICT Both classic and forward-looking, perfect for browsing and research, this exhaustive guide to the realm of number-based thinking and fact-gathering could not be any clearer, any more welcome, and any more more.-Kimberly Olson, Library Journals
“[T]he information in the volume is instantly digestible and absolutely unforgettable, and that’s saying something.” School Library Journal, Starred Review
