Monster Math [Hardcover]

Anne Miranda (Author), Polly Powell (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2, 1999 | Age Level: 3 and up | Grade Level: P and up

One little monster waits for the first birthday guest to arrive. . . . There’s a knock on the door, and now there are two! Now three! Now four! The guests keep arriving until fifty partying monsters wreak havoc and Monster Mom decides that enough is enough. The partygoers reluctantly depart until just that one little monster remains--after the best birthday party ever. Little ones can learn counting and basic math concepts while they’re laughing over the rollicking rhymes and hilarious, energetic illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"The house is a wreck and the couch has been frosted./ The food's been devoured and Mother's exhausted." But what else could be expected when a little red-nosed, green-skinned monster invites 49 of her nearest and dearest monster friends to a birthday party? From start to finish Miranda (To Market, To Market) and Powell (Just Dessert) chronicle the offbeat birthday bash with zany ?lan, and the math lesson feels like a natural component. Things start normally enoughAfor a monster party, at least. The first nine monster guests arrive one by one and prove a relatively manageable bunch: Mother, a multi-armed purple mutant with bright orange bouffant and harlequin spectacles, even expertly organizes a sack race for the assembled ghouls. But when more monsters start arrivingAin groups of 10, no lessAand finally number 50, Mother realizes that the situation is out of hand, and she instigates some major monster subtraction. Within a few pages, the little green birthday monster is left alone, but she's "grateful and glad./ It's the best birthday party that she's ever had!" Powell's mega-motley monster crew is a hoot (even very sensitive children will be hard pressed to find one beastie that's genuinely scary), and Miranda once again shows that she has few rivals when it comes to spinning out a story of comic chaos. Ages 3-8. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 2-A counting book that shows a little monster greeting guests arriving for a party. The rhyming text describes the guests' antics and the eventual chaos: "Nine sticky monsters are washing their faces./Ten speedy monsters run ten monster races./The monsters keep coming and Mother's lost count./Ten more make twenty-a monstrous amount!" The numbers mount until there are 50 revelers in all. They leave in varying-sized groups until just one little monster remains. The party ends with an exhausted mother, a wrecked house, and a little monster that is "grateful and glad./It's the best birthday party that she's ever had!" The chubby, toylike creatures, each different, are shown in friendly, bouncy poses. The pages are filled with action, but most of the activities are not particularly imaginative and there is little in the way of wordplay. The story line functions primarily as a vehicle for counting and introducing the concepts of addition and subtraction. Kate Duke's One Guinea Pig Is Not Enough (Dutton, 1998) tells a bit more of a story through the illustrations. Some children, however, may find the little monsters' antics appealing and enjoy seeing the pages fill up with creatures as the numbers increase.
Adele Greenlee, Bethel College, St. Paul, MN
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 3 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books; 1st edition (August 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0152018352
• ISBN-13: 978-0152018351
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 9.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,755,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

When I was a little girl I loved rhymes, especially the ones my grandmother used to recite to me. Now that I am all grown up, I enjoy writing them. One rhyme my grandmother liked to say as she bounced me on her knee was "to market, to market to buy a fat pig, home again, home again jiggity jig!". But, she never told me what happened to the pig when it got home. I always wondered, so I wrote a funny book about a frazzled shopper who brings home one very naughty pig and a host of other uncooperative animals from the market. Of course, they make a big mess. What, oh what will she do? You'll have to read the book to find out! To Market To Market, illustrated by the amazing Janet Stevens, has been translated into Korean as has Monster Math illustrated by Polly Powell. Be sure to look for my other books, including Glad Monster, Sad Monster with Caldecott Award winning illustrator Ed Emberley. Glad Monster has recently been translated into French and Spanish and is available in France, Canada, Spain and much of the Spanish-speaking world. How cool is that?

I'm currently living in Spain with my two grown-up basketball-playing boys, my husband, and my trusty computer. I enjoy painting, gardening, blogging, facebooking, singing barbershop and of course watching my boys play basketball. I'm still writing away and may soon have a new book or two to add to my list of published works.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent teaching tool!, July 25, 2000

By 

Rita Hickman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monster Math (Hardcover)

This is an excellent teaching tool for beginning counters! I gave this book to a group of toddlers and they absolutely loved it! I have read this book over and over again. With the great rhyming words and great pictures, this book will surely help your child enjoy counting. This book tells a cute little story (while counting by ones, then tens, and then back down again) about a monster having a party that gets out of control in which the mother monster shoes them all away! It is a great book!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great idea, but major flaw in the illustrations, February 27, 2008

By 

Southern California Gal (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monster Math (Paperback)

The idea of this book is great for teaching/reinforcing math skills for beginning counters. I did enjoy the text. One monster has a birthday party and more and more monsters show up and then leave. Your child is supposed to count the monsters. The book takes them up slowly from 1-10 and then jumps from 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 to 50 and back down quickly from 50 to 10 to 5, 4, 3, 2 to 1 (the birthday girl).

Love the idea of this book; however, there is a major flaw in it surrounding the illustrations. While they are interesting and cute, they do not make for "easy" counting for little ones. For example, one of the monsters has two heads - does that count for one monster or two then? (counts for two) and some of the monsters, you can only see an arm, leg, or part of a head (like a horn), so it was confusing for the little kids who were actually trying to count them all. My children even mistook the pinata for a monster on one page. Also, the birthday girl's mother (who is a monster) is in some of the pages, but you are not supposed to count her as one of them - see what I mean? The rules, logic, and order are missing in the illustrations and that is the foundation of math. The pattern of 30 or 40 or 50 monsters on a page to count is so random that even I couldn't remember if I had counted "that one" yet or not. So this might be better suited for an older counter if you are just beginning with a younger child. I think when the kids are young, it is especially important to build their confidence and skills with consistency, simplicity and when they succeed by counting the right number, that positive success makes it more fun for them and they want to keep learning. This book made my 4 yr old twins frustrated. They kept counting and winding up with the wrong number and they are actually one year ahead in math, so I know it's simply the illustrations. Me having to explain that "technically" there are 41 monsters on that page, but you're not supposed to count the mother as a monster. And they retort, "But isn't she a monster, mom?" - well yes, she is. It ended up being more of a frustration than the great counting book it could have been. I hope someday they reillustrate the book and keep these things in mind.

I'd recommend "Math for All Seasons" by Greg Tang for young children. In his book, the illustrations are clearly laid out and organized and make it fun for the kids to count and succeed.

Check it out from your library before you spend the money on it. I'm glad I did.