143 p. Lerner Publishing Group, October, 2013. 9781467705943. (Borrowed from the public library)
Logan and Benedict are back. Logan is charged with keeping Benedict in line during a visit to a math museum. Benedict is immediately bored. wanders away from the class and discovers a door marked, "Closed to the Public." Of course, he enters, so Logan must as well. They encounter a friendly enough researcher named Dr. Thagoras, who is working on a robot that he introduces as Cypher. Cypher loves numbers and since Benedict does not, the two get into a bit of a tiff, which seems to short circuit the robot. While Dr. T is out of the room, Benedict decides to really let Cypher know what he thinks about math, so Cypher zaps the two boys. All the math they both have learned is gone. And there's a big math test in a few days!
Wordster Lubar proves he's equally adept at playing with numbers as he is playing with words. I really enjoyed Punished (2007) and chose to read it aloud to my middle grade classes then. I didn't blog about it because I hadn't started blogging yet. It was fun to revisit with Logan and Benedict though, as a math-phobe, I got a little numbed trying to follow the math in the book. Still, I'm passing this one on to the fifth grade math teachers as a read aloud suggestion. Why should LA teachers have all the fun/ responsibility of reading aloud?
Give this one to students who want a short, funny read or students who love numbers. The book stands alone but be sure to check out Punished if you don't already know it.
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