A while ago, I posted a request to home-ed for any books (not curriculum materials) that were *about* math. I got a small response, and went trawling for more materials. The following is the result. If anyone knows about any of these books or materials (aside from the schoolish ones), please feel free to e-mail me a brief description so that I can include it.

The criteria I was aiming for was *either* something less formal than school-type math (such as _The Story of Numbers_ by Patricia Lauber) or something innovative, such as School House Rock or _Math Magic_. Ideally, I would like to get more items such as _Flatland_.

--Pat Willette

Schoolish

• Family Math
• Grocery Cart Math
• Games for Math by Peggy Kaye
• Math Wizardry for Kids (Barron's)
• Math for Every Kid by Janice Van Cleave
• The Good Apple Math Book

• Math Magic by Scott Flansburg
  
• Trachtenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics by Trachtenberg, 1965, Pan book, London, UK 0-330-23086-7 (Here's a URL with a program for this type of math: Trachtenberg program and a URL with a biography of Jakow Trachtenberg.
  
• The Complete Book of Finger Math by Edwin M. Lieber 0-07-037681-6 (school), 0-07-037680-8. This turns out to be a text-book, put out by McGraw-Hill. The author adopted 2 children from Korea, and when they arrived, they brought Chisanbop with them! This is a method for counting and doing simple arithmetic on your fingers. You can "count" up to 99 on your fingers. The book is very well done, with nice, clear illustrations and wording. You can find a review of this book here
  
• The Complete Book of Chisanbop by Sung Hin Pai and Hang Young Pai. Von Nostrand Reinhold Company, (1980, 1981). A description of Chisanbop
  
• 4 the Math Wizard by Louis Grant Brandes (1962), J. Weston Walch, publisher. P.O. Box 1075, Portland, ME. "It is a wonderful book filled with pictures, challenges, games, ideas, etc. My children (10-6) all like it, even the 6 yo who can barely read."
  
• I will throw School House Rock in here, since it is a "different" way to memorize times tables, etc. Available on video and CD. School House Rock : the Unofficial Site School House Rock: the Unofficial Site (I understand that Music for Little People carries the VCR tapes.)

• Stories to Solve
  
• More Stories to Solve (Fifteen Folktales from Around the World)
  
• Still More Stories to Solve
  all by George Shannon

  We got the second of these out of the Lewiston library, and enjoyed it very much. It was an old book. I would say that it got reprinted because I saw the three of these listed in a catalog recently (Dale Seymour? Cuisenaire?).

• The Story of Numbers by Patricia Lauber Both of my kids enjoyed this very much, as did my husband and I. While there are books out there that are more comprehensive, this was an excellent introduction to the history of mathematics. Narrative style which flowed, instead of being choppy, one point leading logically to the next. Several examples of number systems that were news to me, and pointed out the patterns in the words assigned to numbers. A mix of linguistics, anthropology, math, history, and geography. The perfect unschooling book! (I would love to start a letter writing campaign to get this into print again.)
  
• How We Learned the Earth is Round by Patricia Lauber
  
• Round Trip by Ann Jonas A really cool "easy reader" book which is visually quite intriguing. The pictures are in black and white. The story is about a trip (I have forgotten where - to a farm?). For this portion, you read the book from front to back. Then, you turn the book upside down, and read the return trip from back to front. The pictures still make sense! (Geometry, binary (anything black or white is intrinsically binary), uses of negative space).
  
• The Dot and the Line : A Romance in Lower Mathematics by Norman Juster
  
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster "Fun book, with lots of puns and a really neat way of looking at math. Definitely a good read for ages 10 and up." My grand-nephew enjoyed this at age 5. *My* kids read it this year (Alex is 11 and Nicky is 7) and built a cardboard tollbooth in the yard ...
  
• The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Laskey
  
• Flatland by (?) Abbot (Dover Thrift edition $1.00) "A citizen of a two dimensional world visits a three dimensional one and comes home and tries unsuccessfully to tell his people about it. The two dimensional world is extremely hierarchical. A word of warning - this book was first published in the 1920s and is extremely sexist by our standards today. It is still a good read as long as you are aware of this element when you start."
  
• Powers of Ten by Philip and Phyllis Morrison and The Office of Charles Eames. A book about the relative size of things in the universe and the effect of adding another zero.
  
• Mathematicians Delight by W.W. Sawyer (1943)
  
• How Much Is A Million? by Steven Kellog
  
• Fractals, Googols, and Other Mathematical Tales by Theonni Pappas ISBN 0-933174-89-6. "Uses Penrose the Cat to teach about pi, dimensions, topology, Mobius strips, bases 10 & 12, etc., None of the "education" is in depth, but all of it is fun." (Read More about this book.)
  
• A Gebra Named Al by Wendy Isdell. "A young girl by the name of Julie is the protagonist. She has trouble with Algebra, and then is taken on an adventure through the land of mathematics."
  
• One, Two, Three - Infinity by George Gamow. "Probably somewhat dated, but it is in many libraries. (Essays on math and science in a sort of Asimov style)."
  
• How to Solve It by G. Polya. "An excellent book on problem solving in a mathematical context, with easy extensions to other fields. To appreciate it, you should know, or be studying, high school geometry."
  
• How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff "An amusing account of the use and misuse of statistics in everyday life. Good information about graphs as well. The book is tiny and fairly eas to read. It is probably high school level, but a sixth grader with an interest could easily follow it."
  
• Mathsemantics by Edward MacNeal. "An unusual discussion of the meaning of math and of the interactions between math and language. (High school level reading; no equations). Highly recommended for adults, too."
  
• Realm of Algebra by Isaac Asimov. Houghton Mifflin (1961) "It may be more formal than you like. It's well written, in the same style as his other nonfiction books."
  

• Estimation by Charles Linn
• Base Five by David Ader
• Angles Are Easy As Pie by Robert Froman

• Remainder of One by Elinor Pinczes (about division)
• Sea Squares by Joy Hulme (about square numbers)
• The Tangram's Magician by Lisa Campbell Ernst (about Tangram's puzzles)

The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns

Sphereland by Dionys Burger. "A sequel of sorts to _Flatland_. It deals with interactions between 2 and 3D critters, talks about curved spaces, and speculates about 4th spatial dimensions. It lacks the Victorian air of the original, which is mostly a change for the better.

• Treasure Mathstorm
• Math Blaster series
• The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis

The Abacus by Jesse Dilson