"Math Curse" by Jon Scieszka, Illustrated by Lane Smith

Image Courtesy of: http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172426654l/174329.jpg

Bibliographic Citation

Title: Math Curse

Author: Jon Scieszka

Illustrator: Lane Smith

Year of Publication: 1995

Publisher City: New York

Publisher: Viking Books

ISBN: 0670861944

Author Website: http://www.jsworldwide.com/

Illustrator Website: http://www.lanesmithbooks.com/LaneSmithBooks/Lane_Smith_Books.html

Media Used for Artwork: Collage, Oil and Acrylic Paint

2009 Students’ List

Awards

·         American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults

·         Texas Bluebonnet Fanfare

·         Publishers Weekly Best Books of 1995

·         School Library Journal Best Books of 1995

·         Booklist Editors’ Choice Award

Annotation

A math teacher, Mrs. Fibonacci curses her student to think of the different aspects of daily life as math problems.  Literally everything involves math and worse yet for the student, everything involves fractions.

Personal Reaction

                Scieskza is a very tricky author for putting all of those math problems in a picture book.  Young readers could easily become confused by the story, but older readers on the other hand will be able to understand it and have to work to find the answers.  Parents or teachers can use this to help older readers work on solving math problems.  This book is especially useful for questions that involve fractions, which the narrator tried to avoid until the end.  While reading this book I couldn’t help but try to solve the problems presented.  It appears I was hit with the math curse as well.

                Smith’s illustrations are really amazing.  The collage method he uses adds a great deal of texture to each picture.  There are a variety of images used to create one illustration.  For example, the paper used for the birthday’s question is beautiful for the fact that it is actual paper being used to represent the table.  It must have taken a great amount of time to complete these, but it certainly adds a depth to the story that would not have been there if there was only text for a reader (that would have been too similar to a math textbook).

Curriculum: Grade 5 Math- This book can be read in class to help show students that teachers have an understanding of their math anxiety.  In addition, teachers can actually use the problems in this book in class for students to solve in class.