Math Curse

The authors show that math doesn't have to be scary.

Author: Jon Scieszka Illustrator: Lane Smith Pages: 32 Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc. Published Date: 01/01/1995 Genre: Fiction - Humor HC Price: $16.99 Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: Ages 4-8 Read Alone: 6+

Common Sense Note

As a story, the daylong buffeting of the girl's math curse is nicely proportioned, though the writing hyperbole could use some oxygen. The artwork is full of sharp little teeth and absurdist appeal.

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Peter Lewis

Scieszka and Smith are high priests in the Church of Nothing Sacred, and they take to their calling with a vengeance. Fairy tales? Rewrite them 'till they beg for mercy. Stories of high moral tone? Administer the ice pick and watch them leak their pomposity. Whatever, they give kids an opportunity to deepen their appreciation of a topic by putting it in perspective and context, pulling as many vivid pranks along the way as they can fit on the page.

Here it is math anxiety that gets the chop. Their vehicle for its destruction is a riotous obsessive-compulsive response to the "math (or science or geography ...) is everywhere" blather doled out by teachers without any more imagination. The narrator, with a funkster/hipster edginess, is instantly appealing. "I like the girl," said an eight-year-old, clearly taken by the frazzled heroine.

The words detonate like explosions on the page--"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, spiky-toothed setting that also contains collage pieces and other elements that could have been plucked from a canvas by Vermeer or Miro. The typeface has been given mood elevators.

Exciting stuff, and welcome cousin to the duo's The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of Three Little Pigs. For more manic motoring, try Henrik Drescher's Simon's Book.

Plot Summary:

The exhilarating and lawless world of Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith turns its attention to math anxiety. In short order, they reduce that ancient fear to rubble, allowing readers to see it for the bullying, ridiculous nonsense it is. By extension, the book gives the whole ragged world of dread a salutary thrashing.

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