The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity: a tale of the genius Ramanujan by Amy Alznauer. Illustrated by Daniel Miyares. unpgd. Candlewick Press, April, 2020. 9780763690489. Review of finished copy courtesy of publisher.)
People who know me, know I am math averse. It's a trauma that goes all the way back to my childhood cringing under the weight of my father's impatience when I couldn't understand any concept he tried to "teach" me. I am frequently pulled from the library to cover classes and my greatest dread is covering a math class. I once sorta kiddingly told my VP, "Sending me to cover math is child abuse."
But I do love reading about mathematicians! The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity is a beautifully illustrated picture book biography of a self-taught mathematical genius told sparely and accessibly. Ramanujan was born in British-ruled India in the late 1800s. He took a while to talk and would quietly arrange copper pots instead of interacting. His grandfather taught him how to count and that seemed to make a connection for soon he was talking and asking such unanswerable questions as, "What is small?" or "What is big?" He went to school at age five but soon grew bored when his teachers would not/ could not answer his incessant questions. He tried school over and over rarely encountering a teacher who appreciated his genius. He flunked out of college, had trouble finding jobs, yet still he wrote equations in his notebooks and pondered what is big and small. He sent a letter to a distinguished professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, who invited him to sail to England to discuss number theory.
The palette of the ink illustrations is cheery with splashes of red and yellow to draw the eye. Several illustrations sport equations. All evocatively depict Ramanujan immersed in another world. He seems to glow in each spread. In the Author's Note at the end of the book, readers learn that Ramanujan died young, at the age of 32. There's a bibliography but not one that young readers will find easily accessible. The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity seems to be the first and it's terrific.
The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty. 304 p. Random House Children's Books, May,2018. 9781524767570.
Rising sixth grader, Esther K. recommended today's feature! Esther sent me a message to say that she loved The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl and I think it's a great choice for Middle Grade Monday! I haven't highlighted it here in The Daily Book Talk because I reviewed it for School Library Journal. You can read that review here.
Ever since Lucy Callahan was struck by lightning, she has been a math genius. So much so, that between that and her OCD, she has been homeschooled by her grandmother. She's ready for college math now but her grandmother wants her to try middle school for one year, make one new friend and read one book that isn't math related. Read this is you love books about friendship, middle school or math. Read it even if you hate math. Lucy and her grandmother are wonderful characters!
Thanks Esther!
ETA: I was thrilled to pick up an arc of The World Ends in April at ALAAC!
Mysterious Patterns: finding fractals in nature by Sarah C. Campbell. Photographs by Sarah C. Campbell and Richard P. Campbell. 32 p. Boyds Mills Press, April 1, 2014. 9781620916278. (Finished copy provided by publisher for review.)
The concept of fractals is explained here in simple text accompanied by brilliant photographs of shapes in nature that are considered fractals and shapes that are not. Perfect for the visual learner and/ or math-phobe. Math teachers ought to consider using this to introduce the concept. The volume concludes with an invitation to create your own fractal and an Afterword by Michael Frame, a colleague of Benoit Mandelbrot, who posits that an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter's is theoretically possible thanks to fractals.
by Greg Pincus. 226 p. Arthur A. Levine Books/ Scholastic Inc., September, 2013. 9780439912990. (Finished copy courtesy of publisher for a review.)
Gregory K. is a poet lost in a family of math geniuses. Until now, amiable Gregory has kept his lack of math skills and fondness for the subject, a secret from his mathematically overachieving family. His cover is about to be blown because he's in danger of failing math. If he does, he knows he will find himself in math camp this summer instead of author camp with his best friend, Kelly. Author camp was always going to be a hard sell with his folks and now that Kelly's moving away, Gregory wants to attend more than anything. Can he risk telling his parents the truth? Remember I said that Gregory is amiable? In order to please everyone, he spins a series of lies. Of course, it collapses but Gregory gets help and support from an unexpected source and learns to see how his particular skill set can help him understand math.
This sweet and gentle middle grade novel about family, friendship, math and poetry is engaging and humorous. Warning: Do not read on an empty stomach. Kelly's mom owns a pie store named Slice, which Gregory visits daily and pie is described in glorious detail.
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.
