Math Curse

Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith are high priests in the Church of Nothing Sacred, and they take to their calling with a vengeance. Here it is math anxiety that gets the chop. Their vehicle for its destruction is a riotous obsessive-compulsive response to the "math is everywhere" blather doled out by teachers without any more imagination. The narrator, with a funkster/hipster edginess, is instantly appealing.

The words detonate like explosions -- "On the planet Tetra, kids have only two fingers on each hand. They count 1, 2, 3, 10" -- and Smith's paintings provide an eerie, wired setting that also contains collage pieces and other elements that could have been plucked from a canvas by Vermeer or Miro. The authors give kids an opportunity to deepen their appreciation of a topic by putting it in perspective and context.