Published by Balzer + Bray

Summary: Frank is a monster with a passion for chicken nuggets, especially the ones Celeste sells on her food truck. Since Frank isn’t exactly an ideal customer (scares away other customers, doesn’t pay, terrible table manners), Celeste is desperate for a way to get rid of him. Some library research gives her an idea: the 30-Day Double Nugget Challenge. Each day the number of nuggets offered will doubled, and anyone who can eat them all wins free chicken nuggets for life. Seems easy enough on the first few days but by day 14 (8,192 nuggets), Frank is the only customer left. On day 30, he starts in on the pile of 536,870,912 nuggets and makes it all the way to the final one, and then…. Includes an author’s note and additional information on exponential growth. 40 pages; grades K-3.

Pros: Similar stories have been told for ages (as the author acknowledges in his note), but this is a particularly fun one with humorous monster illustrations that really bring home the concept of exponential growth.

Cons: The interesting endnotes were printed on the back cover, where the taped-down dust jacket obscured approximately one-sixth of them.

Published by HarperCollins

Summary:  Ana and Harwin are best friends, a relationship that Ana likes to chart through infographics.  She starts with a Venn diagram of the two girls, showing what is unique to them and what they have in common.  Other charts and graphs show how they spend their time and how they work out disagreements.  When Harwin announces she is moving far away, both girls are devastated.  Ana shares her emotions through a bar graph, then makes a flowchart to weigh the consequences of packing herself in Harwin’s suitcase.  The move goes ahead, but the two girls make plans (with charts) for staying in touch and for adventures they will have together when they’re older.  Includes additional information on twelve different types of infographics.  40 pages; grades 1-4.

Pros:  There’s a lot of mathematical information packed into this cute friendship story, providing a fun way to introduce infographics that could serve as a springboard for kids making their own.

Cons:  This could be slow going as a group read-aloud since each page may require a lengthy explanation.  

Published by HMH Books for Young Readers

Summary:  As construction workers head to an old clock tower to restore it to its former glory, they discover that rats and bats have made their homes among the rusted gears and rotting boards.  They get to work, doing their best to work around the animals.  Math makes several appearances in the story: “Seven steps upon a stair,/Six are tangled, one is bare./Five are red. Two are green./Four are thick and three are lean.”  The clock slowly comes back to life, and the animals scramble when the chimes sound. But the thoughtful workers haven’t forgotten about them: they use scraps of wood to build homes for them on the outside of the clock tower. 40 pages; ages 3-8.

Pros:  Just as he did in Billions of Bricks, Kurt Cyrus uses energetic rhymes and detailed illustrations to bring a construction project to life.  Numbers, shapes, and other mathematical concepts are woven effortlessly into the text.

Cons:  I can’t help thinking those animals might not enjoy living right up against a chiming clock.

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