Math Curse

by Jon Scieszka (Author) Lane Smith (Illustrator)

Math Curse
Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade
Did you ever wake up to one of those days where everything is a problem? You have 10 things to do, but only 30 minutes until your bus leaves. Is there enough time? You have 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants. Can you make 1 good outfit? Then you start to wonder: Why does everything have to be such a problem? Why do 2 apples always have to be added to 5 oranges? Why do 4 kids always have to divide 12 marbles? Why can't you just keep 10 cookies without someone taking 3 away? Why? Because you're a victim of the Math Curse. That's why. But don't despair. This is one girl's story of how that curse can be broken.
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Hardcover
$18.99

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review
Whew! This latest whimsical work from Scieszka and Smith (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs; The Stinky Cheese Man) is bound to stretch out the old thinking cap. The day after her teacher announces, "You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem," the narrator is afflicted with a "math curse" that affects how she views every facet of her day ("Everything seems to be a problem"). A minimum of the questions she asks herself are entirely logical ("How many quarts are in a gallon?"); some are far-fetched extrapolations (if an M&M is about one centimeter long and the Mississippi River is about 4000 kilometers long, how many M&Ms would it take to measure the length of this river?); and a happily hefty number are sheer nonsense: "I undo 8 buttons plus 2 shoelaces. I subtract 2 shoes. I multiply times 2 socks and divide by 3 pillows to get 5 sheep, remainder 1, which is all I need to count before I fall asleep." Like the text, Smith's wonderfully wacky collage-like art will give readers ample food for thought-even if it's part junk food. Here's a morsel: "Does tunafish + tunafish = fournafish?" Kids will want seconds-count on it. Ages 7-up. (Oct.)

School Library Journal

Spice up your classes with books by Greg Tang, an author who encourages kids to take a playful approach to math. Each book has complete explanations for the problems posed. Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Jon Scieszka
Jon Scieszka is the creator of Trucktown, including the New York Times bestselling Smash, Crash!, and the author of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, the Time Warp Trio series, Caldecott Honor Book The Stinky Cheese Man, and many other books that inspire kids to want to read. He has worked as an elementary school teacher and is the founder of GuysRead.com, a literacy initiative for boys.

David Shannon has written and illustrated numerous award winning picture books including Duck on a Bike, the Caldecott Honor Book No David!, How I Learned to be a Pirate, and Good Boy Fergus. He is also one of the collaborative illustrators in Jon Scieszka's Trucktown series. David lives with his wife and his daughter in Los Angeles.

Loren Long illustrated President Barack Obama's Of Thee I Sing; the newest version of The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper; Madonna's second picture book, Mr. Peabody's Apples; Nightsong by Ari Berk; Frank McCourt's Angela and the Baby Jesus; Love by Matt de la Peña; and If I Was the Sunshine by Julie Fogliano. He also wrote and illustrated the Otis series and was part of the Design Garage for Jon Scieszka's Trucktown series. Loren's work has appeared in Time, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic. He lives with his wife and two sons in Cincinnati, Ohio. Visit him at LorenLong.com.

David Gordon has done visual development for numerous production companies from Lucasfilm to Pixar, including Toy Story; Monsters, Inc.; A Bug's Life; Cars; BlueSky's Robots; and Nickelodeon's Spongebob Squarepants. He's also written and illustrated several picture books, among them Hansel and Diesel, The Three Little Rigs, The Ugly Truckling, and Smitten. He's one of the illustrators of Jon Scieszka's fifty-two-book, New York Times bestselling series, Trucktown. Visit him at IllustratorRanch.com.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9780670861941
Lexile Measure
560
Guided Reading Level
13
Publisher
Viking Books for Young Readers
Publication date
October 19, 1995
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV036000 - Juvenile Fiction | Science & Technology
Library of Congress categories
Schools
Math anxiety
Mathematics
Maine Student Book Award
Winner 1997 - 1997
Book Sense Book of the Year Award
Nominee 1996 - 1996
Bluebonnet Awards
Winner 1997 - 1997
California Young Reader Medal
Nominee 1998 - 1998
Great Stone Face Book Award
Winner 1997 - 1998

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