But then found this one…which looks great and questionable at the same time…anyone read this? The concept is great. Is there much religion in it…the Main character seems to be muslim. anybody?
and this one I object to the the word devil in the title and…am not sure it would be appropriate for conservative Christians…but…anyone have any experience with it? Is it fable like? We see many odd things in fables? But I don’t like “playing around with devils and demons”…the terminology bothers me…anyone know the tone of the book?
I have no idea if these are living…anybody? maybe will ck at library for these. this author has written quite a few including one called Mummy Math would that one be good with mod1 I wonder?
I don’t have any experience with the books but one thing I can suggest. When I am researching books on Amazon I like to read the reviews. I find reading the lowest reviews first is helpful as many times it will address the negative aspects of the book…then if I am still interested I’ll read the next highest reviews.
Yes it can be time consuming but I find it very helpful when I am trying to make a decision about a book.
sixtimemom, yes, i do that a lot…but sometimes…the reviews are still so secular..i was hoping that maybe we’d get a more balanced view…at least on the two that were suspect.
that said…after rachel’s wonderful list..i felt silly making my list above. i should have just typed it…but didn’t think of that till i was done…i guess sitting here clicking seemed easier…it’s 83 in the house right now…and i guess i was zoned out!
We have Mathematians Are People Too, Penrose and The Man Who Counted. We love them all. I’m not conservative Christian so maybe this isn’t helpful. Yes the characters in TMWC are Muslim but for us it was an incredibly clever book written with a world religion slant. I see the religion part as background/scenery. It is Challenging, even for adults, but a great book to read with your child(ren) and try to figure out out together. We’ve read it twice and will likely do it again this year.
Joanna – you should really join the living math yahoo group. I think you would enjoy it (I know I have!) and you have a lot to offer the discussion as well. It is a wonderful group and it is run by the owner of the living math site.
I believe the members of the group addressed through discussion some of the reservations expressed above about the Number Devil, maybe you could find the discussion by searching the archives? It was a while back, maybe in the last year though.
We loved “Number Stories of Long Ago”. We did it last year as a read aloud (ages 6 and 10 then) and mostly just skipped over the problems at the end of the chapter, or did a few orally. Along with the movie “The Story of 1“, it really made a big impression.
I bought Penrose the Mathmatical Cat last year and LOST IT!!!! I have been looking for it for months :(I know that as soon as I break down and buy it again it will turn up somehow.
We have also read several of the Sir Cumference books, as well as a couple of Murderous Maths, and Grandfather Tang’s story (tangrams) comes to mind…Also The Greedy Triangle.
Thanks for bringing this up as it seems to me that a CM education should include living books about math, but they are not as commonly discussed on CM sites as are books in the other subject areas.