The Best Vacation Ever (MathStart 2) [Paperback]

Stuart J. Murphy (Author), Nadine Bernard Westcott (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 6 and up | Grade Level: 1 and up | Series: MathStart 2

This busy family needs a vacation, but they don’t know where to go. Mom and Dad want peace and quiet. Grandma wants to go somewhere hot. Fluffer wants to go somewhere that pets can go, too! The pig-tailed narrator gathers all this data and makes a chart to help determine the perfect vacation destination. Learning math is fun when a vacation is the answer!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3. This series of introductory math books presents various concepts on different levels. The Best Vacation Ever shows how a family decides where to go on vacation (problem solving); Divide and Ride shows how 11 children are able to sort themselves into smaller groups in order to go on different rides at a carnival. In Every Buddy, a young girl counts her friends and her pets. All books are simply written but very clear, and concepts are explained in a number of ways. The cartoon illustrations are of average quality and capture the many characters' diverse activities. Suggestions are presented at the end for related activities, such as planning a picnic, dividing snacks, and measuring to make cookies. An entertaining approach to progressive levels of math concepts.?Christine A. Moesch, Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, NY
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Stuart J. Murphy is a visual learning specialist. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he has a strong background in design and art direction. He also has extensive experience in the world of educational publishing. Drawing on all these talents, Stuart J. Murphy brings a unique perspective to the MathStart series. In MathStart books, pictures do more than tell stories; they teach math.

Stuart J. Murphy and his wife, Nancy, live in Boston.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 6 and up
  
• Paperback: 40 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (January 3, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0064467066
• ISBN-13: 978-0064467063
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 9.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #374,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Science, Nature & How It Works > Math > Fiction

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars good at showing the concept of charts, but otherwise..., January 15, 2005

By 

J. Stout (Portsmouth, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best Vacation Ever (MathStart 2) (Paperback)

... I do not recommend this book. It's a good example of a seemingly "neutral" book about math is actually a powerful piece of propaganda. If you look at the storyline critically, it's absurd.

The family consists of a girl, her brother, mom and dad, and grandma. The girl is trying to determine where they should go on vacation, and she uses charts to organize data about the family members' destination preferences. There is no discussion beyond that of the actual decision-making process. It is left for you to assume that the vacation was determined by the vote of a simple majority.

Okay, let's examine that. How do you decide in YOUR family about where to take a vacation? I imagine that the first constraint would be either time or money: how much time you can get off work, when the kids have a vacation from school, and what you can afford to do in that period of time. Murphy presents vacations as an entitlement, claiming "...cats need vacations, too." A cat needs a vacation? Get real.

I am bringing this up because by presenting the taking of vacations as "normal," we must ask how children whose families can little afford the rent, let alone a vacation, would interpret this message. If these white peoples' cat deserves a vacation, yet they do not, does that mean that this society values them as being less than an animal? Some more affluent family's pet?

Sounds about right in a nation that spends billions of dollars every year on pet food while children go hungry, in a country where, in most states, child abuse carries a lighter criminal penalty than maligning a dog.

Furthermore, are we to believe that household decisions involving the allocation of resources are put to a simple vote whereby all family members' wishes are given equal weight? If things operated like that in our household, we would have bubble gum and cotton candy for dinner every night. But if you are able to swallow this idea as a "normal" democracy, than you are more likely to buy into the huge lie that every vote is equally counted when it comes to, let's say, the presidential election in Ohio in 2004. Or Florida in 2000. The majority wins, and that's fair. So we have an almost totally white Congress, and almost totally male Senate... you see how this works. It's "democracy." But we know that's not how it really works. Mom and Dad have all the money, therefore Mom and Dad make the decisions. The children obey.