Math in books (not math books!)

I just recieved an email from a publishing company. They want to send me a few books to review and then list on my site.

I've written reviews before, a whole bunch. I started my "reviewer career"... well, in school of course. We wrote book reviews, as I'm sure you did too. I don't think mine were that special. But somehow the role of reviewer has fallen to my lap nowadays.

For example, recently I just finished the review of YourTeacher and MathScore.

The new books that this email was about are

• Crimes and Mathdemeanors
  A collection of short detective stories for young adults who are interested in applying high school level mathematics and physics to solve mysteries.


• The Cryptoclub: Using Mathematics to Make and Break Secret Codes.
  Join the Cryptokids as they apply basic mathematics to make and break secret codes. This book has many hands-on activities that have been tested in both classrooms and informal settings.

I haven't seen these yet. The reason I put them in this blogpost is because it sounds like these books are examples of math in a somewhat entertaining or interesting context, aimed at high school or middle-school level.

You know, to so many people math remains a "dull" school subject only. And that is so far from truth. It is some of those same people, I'm sure, who confess to the "I'm bad at math and that's okay" attitude as mentioned in the previous blogpost.

I, for sure, intend for my kids to learn the beauty of math, to learn about some of these interesting subjects such as basic cryptography, to learn even of math history.

There exist lots more books like those above, "living math" books - books where mathematical concepts are at the centerpiece of the story.

I encourage you to do something similar. Don't just use the curriculum. Go to the library, and find some of these kind of books (or buy them). It shows kids so much more about math, inspires them about math, and gets rid of these silly attitudes of math being boring or not worth learning.

Because all in all, we can then appreciate mathematics so much more (and its Creator). People are awed by the animal kingdom and appreciate the beauty of this Earth and its plants, its geography, the planets, space etc. But the same applies to math.