The 14 Fibs of Gregory K.

Everyone in Gregory's family adores math--everyone, that is, except Gregory. While his parents and siblings live for the yearly City Math contest, Gregory prefers writing, especially poetry. Gregory has promised his best friend Kelly that he will attend Author Camp with her, despite not having asked his parents. When his math teacher announces that Gregory may fail math, it might as well be the fall of Rome as far as Gregory's parents are concerned--and it results in Gregory constructing an outrageous lie that threatens to backfire. Gregory is a buoyant narrator whose extreme math phobia and obsessive love of pie (and definitely not pi) give his character an idiosyncratic shine. Hyperbolic details, like his mother's "Weird Wednesday" family dinners, are interspersed with passages from Gregory's extra credit math journal, where his ruminations on the Fibonacci sequence and "Fib poetry" give readers access to deeper reflections on mathematics, metaphor, and the places where they might overlap. Pincus's story explores struggles with friends, family, and learning while remaining exuberant and relatable, a winning equation. Ages 8-12. (Sept.)

Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Gr 4-6--Eleven-year-old Gregory K.'s parents, older brother, and younger sister love math and talking about it, but Gregory hates it. All he wants to do is write, spend time with his friend Kelly, and eat pie. When it turns out that Kelly is moving over the summer and that she wants him to join her at Author's Camp, Gregory lurches from one misstep to another as he tries but fails to ask for permission to go to the camp. And in a desperate effort to keep from having to go to math camp instead, he volunteers for the City Math contest, which his brother has won multiple times. Along the way Gregory lies to his parents and his math teacher about loving math, and lies to Kelly about having gotten permission to go to camp, until he figures out a solution that involves poetry, Fibonacci, and telling the truth. Gregory is a reasonably sympathetic, realistic kid who keeps convincing himself that he has things under control even as they slide toward disaster. This lighthearted look at the relationship between poetry and math is fun in places, but the sometimes forced math humor and the somewhat stilted dialogue and narrative style will limit the book's audience.--Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York City

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

"Pincus's story explores struggles with friends, family, and learning while remaining exuberant and relatable, a winning equation." — Publishers Weekly
"This delightful novel introduces a resourceful and inspiring young character, and many readers will relate to Gregory's desire for creative expression and his yearning for acceptance." — Booklist
"Gregory's difficulties with being different from his parents, living in his older brother's shadow, and feeling inadequate compared to a smart younger sister will strike a familiar chord with middle-graders struggling to define themselves. There's a lot of space for this book to open up cross-curricular opportunities in math and literature, and it might also spark interesting book club conversations about how to deal with families whose interests diverge drastically from our own." — Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
"Dialogue and humor carry the third-person narrative along swiftly, and the characters are appealing. It is unusual to meet a family in middle-grade fiction that enjoys playing math games at the table, and it's refreshing to be reminded of the importance of honesty with family and friends. By any reckoning, a successful debut." — Kirkus Reviews