When I finally learned about those things in middle school, I remembered the Math Curse, went back to read it again, and appreciated it on a whole new level. I first read it when I was 8, before I knew what the Fibonacci sequence, binary numbers, or the quadratic formula were. The best part is that this book can grow with a child. The book is also filled with clever wordplay that will appeal to any little linguists out there. I love books that are designed to make you think, and this book definitely does that! But it’s not all about the math. Math Curse is one of my favorite books ever. She learns that although math may be everywhere, it’s no longer something to dread. Despairing that she’ll never escape the math curse put upon her by her math teacher, she finally solves the ultimate math problem (with the help of a clever little pun) that frees her. The reader follows her thoughts throughout the day where she can’t help but regard everything in her daily routine as a problem to solve, including her other subject classes. Fibonacci telling her students, “You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem.” One girl discovers just how true those words are as she wakes up the next day to find that everything around her makes her think in mathematical terms. Have you ever sat in a class (or meeting) and stared at the clock, counting the minutes, pondering and planning the rest of your day? If the answer is yes, then welcome to the Math Curse. Welcome Nida and please enjoy her review: You might be familiar with their classics The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Stinky Cheese Man. I didn’t know about Math Curse until she started raving about it BUT I do love Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, or as I like to call them, the 90s Picture Book Dream Team. I met Nida while teaching English in Korea and she is particularly great with languages and linguistics. To celebrate 40 POSTS on Read It Real Good, I invited my good friend Nida to write about one of her favorite books.

$Math Curse by Jon Scieszka$

Image Credit: Viking (Penguin Group), Jon Scieszka/Lane Smith