This is a great read for the grade seven students at my school. And I am always on the look out for fun fiction for the math teachers. This fits the bill!

What will math do for my life? Teachers are inundated year after year with this question. When the director of education at Sam's school institutes a MATH BAN, math is removed from the school curriculum. Students and teachers gleefully dispose of their notebooks, textbooks and calculators in school recycle bins. Sam, however, is crazy for math. He sees math everywhere and intends to prove to Principal Lake, fellow students and even TV reporters covering this breaking story, that math is used all the time.

How many ways can you make a double scoop ice cream cone if it matters not what flavor is on top and you cannot choose two scoops of the same flavor? Let's select from the flavors vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

(vanilla, chocolate) (vanilla,strawberry)
(chocolate, vanilla) (chocolate, strawberry)
(strawberry,vanilla) (strawberry, chocolate)
3 x 2 = 6 possibilities MATH!

Biking uses geometry, explains Sam. Bike frames and bridges have triangles in them. Triangles are the strongest shape there is and won't collapse from the weight of trucks, cars or cyclists. MATH!

Fellow students now tell Sam that numbers are boring and have no mystery. Sam has his answer ready. Geographic profiling. On TV crime dramas, profilers can map out,for example, where a string of burglaries have occurred and look for patterns to predict where the culprit might work or live. Guess what? MATH!

"The Great Number Rumble: A Story of Math in Surprising Places" by Cora Lee and Gillian O'Reilly delves into math from medieval times as well. Medieval universities required scholars to take arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. Mathematicians like Pythagoras and Archimedes are highlighted. Children, as well as math aficionados of all ages, will find a wealth of facts, often displayed in a playful manner by the authors and illustrator Lil Crump. A complete glossary, selected bibliography and suggestions for further reading are presented as well. Authors Lee and O'Reilly have done a superb job! Math rules!

Thank you Annick Press and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Great Number Rumble".