Einstein, The Girl Who Hated Maths

Publisher: Hodder Children's Books

In this collection of poems with a mathematics theme, John Agard explores a variety of subjects from Fermat’s Theorem to improper fractions, Pi to googols and everything inbetween. Poems such as ‘The Coming of the Hedrons’ are poignant, telling the love story of a Tetrahedron and an Octahedron who combine forms to produce multiple god-like children, or in ‘Once Upon an Equilateral Triangle’ a triangle becomes a snowflake. In other poems, such as ‘Satoshi’s Doodle and the Set Theory’, Agard tackles tricky mathematical concepts in a playful way, which would help children getting to grips with difficult new concepts, and, in the title poem of the book, Agard tells the story of a girl named Einstein by her maths-crazy parents who doesn’t like numbers at all.

It's an unusual book that partners maths with poetry, but if anyone can do the combination justice, it’s all round brilliant poet John Agard and his long time collaborator, the fabulous illustrator Satoshi Kitamura. A perfect book for schools in particular, this book is filled with thought-provoking poems that will re-enchant the magic of maths for children.

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