We selected the books below because their stories are good and math forms an integral part of the story. Most of the books on this list are works of fiction that are well illustrated. They hold the attention of children of all ages because they are fun. They are ideally suited for introducing and encouraging interest in mathematics.
We've assigned grade level groupings to each book. The lower grade level books might be more appropriate for the story value. The higher grade level books make good jump off points for discussions or mathematics lessons if the interest is there. These books have been classroom tested and used with our own children. They come highly recommended.
The list is not all encompassing, and more will be added as time goes on. Please check back regularly to look for new additions. If you have a favorite book that you think should be included, please contact us and tell us why your book fits in. We'll read it as soon as we have the opportunity and add it to the list if appropriate.
Counting Books and Beginning Addition for Young Children |
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| Title | Author/Illustrator | Description/grade level |
| 10 minutes 'til Bedtime! | Peggy Rathmann | A very funny book about the Hamster 10-minute Bedtime Tour. Illustrations are hilarious as dad counts down the minutes until his son goes to bed. Very few words, lots of opportunity for counting, and contemporary. Also fun for adults. Grades P - ? |
| Ten Terrible Dinosaurs | Paul Stickland | Counts down from 10 as dinosaurs go away one by one. Grades P- 1 |
| Counting Crocodiles | Judy Sierra/Will Hillenbrand | Amusing tale of a monkey outwitting a crocodile as crocodiles are counted up to 10 and then back down. Can also be used to add 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + …+ 10. Nice illustrations add to the fun. Grades P- 2 |
| Anno's Counting Book | Mitsumasa Anno | Well illustrated to show many different groupings of 2's, 3's, and so on. On each page the previous number of trees, houses etc. are increased by 1. Grades K - 1 |
| Is There Room on the Bus? | Helen Piers | Animals get on the bus in groups of 1, then 2, then 3, etc. as the bus travels around the world. Grades P - 1 |
| Zin! Zin! Zin!: A Violin | Lloyd Moss/Marjorie Priceman | Teaches duo, trio, quartet, quintet etc. along with counting in the context of music groups. Text sounds almost musical when read aloud. Grades K- 2 |
| Monster Math Picnic | Grace Maccarone/Marge Hartelius | This is a cute quick story that teaches which pairs of numbers sum to ten. Use fingers or ten counters to go along with the story and reinforce the idea. This book is in the Hello Math series. These books all contain mathematical activities going along with the theme of the book. Grades P- 2 |
| 12 Ways to Get to 11 | Eve Merriam/Bernie Karlin | Many different ways of summing to 11. Most of the sums have two addends, some have more. Nice illustrations. Provides a jump off point for studying combinations such as how many ways can you roll a 14 with 3 dice? Grades K - 4 |
| How Many Feet, How Many Tails? A riddle book. | Marilyn Burns/Lynn Adams | Riddles that can be asked as fun math problems along the lines of if there are 6 feet and 2 tails in the room how many dogs and birds are there in the room? This is in the Hello Math series. Grades 1 - 5 |
| A Fair Bear Share | Stuart J. Murphy/John Speirs | Mama bear sends her cubs out to collect nuts, blueberries, and seeds for her famous Blue Ribbon Blueberry Pie. She has the cubs group by 10s and 1s to make the counting easier. 2 digit adding and regrouping or carrying are explored in a way kids can grasp. Story line of who's doing their fair share keeps kids interested. Grades P - 3 |
| Shapes | ||
| Title | Author/Illustrator | Description/grade level |
| The Greedy Triangle | Marilyn Burns | Starts with a triangle who wants more corners. Progresses through square, pentagon, hexagon to almost a circle. Grades 1- 3 |
| The Silly Story of Goldie Locks and the Three Squares | Grace Maccarone/Anne Kennedy | A Hello Math series book with a story that is sure to appeal to your child's sense of humor as this Goldie Locks falls on her "you-know-what" several times. The book teaches the shapes circle, triangle, rectangle, and square - the special rectangle with equal sides. It's written for beginning readers and is funny and lively. Grades P- 1 |
| Bear in a Square | Stella Blackstone | Explores the basic shapes while counting them. Makes a good search book, does not recognize that a square is also a rectangle. Grades P- 1 |
| Shape Shuffle | Staff of World Book Inc | |
| Measurement | ||
| Title | Author/Illustrator | Description/grade level |
| Monster Math School Time | Grace Maccarone/Marge Hartelius | The monsters are at school, and every activity has its assigned time. Grades K- 2 |
| If You Made a Million | David M. Schwartz/Steven Kellog | Fun way to explore money including $10 in pennies makes a five foot stack, what's a bank for, what is interest and how does money accumulate in a bank account. Not exactly a story but fun. Grades 2- 5 |
| Just Enough Carrots | Stuart Murphy | A young rabbit goes shopping with his mother and compares how many carrots, peanuts, and worms his mother is buying to what other shoppers have in their baskets. The illustrations are funny, young children will enjoy counting while learning about more, the same, and fewer. Grades P- 1 |
| More for Me | Sydnie Meltzer Kleinhenz/Jerry Zimmerman | A Hello Math series book exploring area and volume in terms of food and drink, when do you really have more? Possible activities just jump out at you from the story. Grades K- 2 |
| Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi | Cindy Neuschwander/Wayne Geehan | Sir Cumference turns into a dragon and his son Radius must find the correct medicine and dosage to change him back before the Knights kill him. The answer lies in a riddle that starts: "Measure the middle and circle around, Divide so a number can be found..." A good beginning for a math experiment about pi. Grades 4- 7 |
| Grouping for multiplication and division preparation | ||
| Title | Author/Illustrator | Description/grade level |
| One Hundred Hungry Ants | Elinor Pinczes/Bonnie MacKain | Ants are off to a picnic to scavenge only their progress is too slow. They try one row of 100 ants, then 2 rows of 50 ants and so on. Each time they regroup they lose time and other animals scurry past. Very whimsical and appeals to children as young as 3 just for the story and illustrations. Grades P- 4. |
| A Remainder of One | Elinor Pinczes/Bonnie MacKain | An army of 25 ants must march before their queen in even rows. Division of 25 by 2, 3, 4, and finally 5 before the rows are even. Good companion to One Hundred Hungry Ants. Catchy rhythm and eye appealing illustrations. Grades P- 5 |
| Too Many Kangaroo Things To Do | Stuart Murphy/Kevin O'Malley | Kangaroo's friends are all too busy to play with him. They are preparing for Kangaroo's surprise birthday party. Multiplication with 1 through 4 helps figure out how many things must be done to get ready, 100 in all. Grades 2 - 3. |
| The King's Commissioners | Aileen Friedman/Susan Guevara | How many commissioners does the King have? Different ways of grouping and then counting help reveal the true number. Grades 1 - 4 |
| Divide and Ride | Stuart Murphy/George Ulrich | Eleven friends go do an amusement park and must figure out seating arrangements for several rides. Explicit division with the number 11. Grades 3- 5 |
| Amanda Bean's Amazing Dream | Cindy Neuschwander/Lisa Woodruff/Marilyn Burns | Amanda discovers that multiplying is a faster way of counting. Illustrations help identify the right multiplication problem to do. Grades 2 - 5. |
| Sequences | ||
| Title | Author/Illustrator | Description/grade level |
| One Grain of Rice | Demi | Explores the doubling sequence in an Indian tale. Rani asks the Rajah for the reward of one grain of rice doubled every day for a month. On the 30th day Rani receives over 500 million grains of rice. When added all together she receives over a billion grains. Well illustrated with a calendar in back showing how much Rani gets each day. Good for the doubling sequence and for understanding large numbers. Grades 2 - 6 |
| 512 Ants on Sullivan Street | Carol Losi/Patrick Merrel | Explores the doubling sequence in ants but can also be used for division by 2. Grades 2- 5. |
| Anno's Magic Seeds | Mitsumasa Anno | Doubling sequence with a twist. Each magic seed produces a plant that produces two more seeds. How many can be safely eaten with what result? Requires a bit more thought to follow the mathematics than One Grain of Rice. Grades 3- 7 |
| Graphing | ||
| Title | Author/Illustrator | Description/grade level |
| Lemonade for Sale | Stuart Murphy/Tricia Tusa | Good introduction to bar graphs in context of how much lemonade was sold on a given day. Grades 2- 4 |
| Estimating | ||
| Title | Author/Illustrator | Description/grade level |
| Betcha | Stuart Murphy/S.D. Schindler | One boy challenges another to guess how many in a variety of settings. The boy takes up the challenge using estimating skills with multiplication and rounding. Grades 3- 5 |
| Fractions | ||
| Title | Author/Illustrator | Description/grade level |
| Fraction Fun | David Adler/Nancy Tobin | Not so much a story as a well illustrated way to introduce fractions. Includes activities. Did you know that 11 pennies weigh and ounce so 1 penny weighs 1/11 of an ounce? Grades 2- 5 |
| More than One Math Concept | ||
| Title | Author/Illustrator | Description/grade level |
| Pizza Pals: Learn Numbers, Colors, and Shapes with the Pizza Pals | Lisa Marsoli | Covers the basics you want kids to have end of kindergarten-beginning first grade in a fun way. Grades K- 1 |
| How Much, How Many, How Far, How Heavy, How Long, How Tall is 1000? | Helen Nolan/Tracy Walker | Illustrates the concepts in the title. Examples are a stack of 1000 pieces of paper or 1000 pieces of paper spread out over a town, 1000 acorns in a pile or 1000 oak trees, 1000 hairs is not much, 1000 bricks makes a very small house. Will intrigue children, you can use it as a discussion point for estimating and measurement. Grades K - 4 |
| The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure | Hans Magnus Enzensberger/Rotraut Suzanne Berner | This story is for kids/adults with an inquisitive mind that haven't seen the fun side of math yet. Robert, who's twelve, is visited in his dreams by a number devil whose purpose is to introduce Robert to fascinating mathematics. The triangle numbers, what you can do with 1, cool facts about Pascal's triangle, some topology, and an introduction to some of the mathematical geniuses behind major math theorems are some of the things that come up in this book. It's fun reading and serves up tasty morsels an 11 year old can enjoy. Grades 5 and up. |
| G is for Googol, A Math Alphabet Book | David M. Schwartz/ Marissa Moss | Not a story but a great introduction to a variety of math terms and concepts. Large numbers and large distances, Fibonacci sequences, graph theory, tessalations are just some of the ideas in this book. Grades 4 and up. |
| Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School | Louis Sachar | Sue joins Mrs. Jewel's class at Wayside School and is faced with incomprehensible math problems such as elf + elf = fool. This book is full of such brain teasers and also serves up a healthy dose of logic puzzles. Sure to appeal to creative thinkers, and reinforces arithmetic concepts we begin to take for granted. Comes with solutions. Grades 4 and up. |
| The Joy of Mathematics | Theoni Pappas | Math morsels: a taste of lots of mathematical ideas to explore from number ideas to geometric ideas to infinity in small places. Art, architecture, nature, science, history, and philosophy can all be found in this book connected to math ideas. Enliven your math class by reading selections from this book. Comes with solutions. Grades 4 and up. |
| Math for Kids & Other People Too! | Theoni Pappas | Written in short story form; numbers, operators, shapes and more talk to the audience. This book is designed to draw kids into doing math. Filled with math activities that teach and explore math concepts. Engaging. Comes with solutions. Grades 3- 7. |
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Last Updated on 6/15/99