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|  | Author: Danica McKellar
Publisher: Plume
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $8.64
as of 11/22/2009 19:33 CST details
You Save: $6.36 (42%)
New (34) Used (9) from $8.46
Seller: allnewbooks
Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 4446
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0452295408
Dewey Decimal Number: 512
EAN: 9780452295407
ASIN: 0452295408
Publication Date: June 30, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 16-20 of 38
Math Savvy is the new "Cool." May 24, 2009
Frank M. (Chatsworth, CA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
McKellar teaches complex ideas in a nonintimidating and--more importantly in today's pop culture-driven world--an entertaining manner. Her book builds confidence and self-reliance for young people at a time in life when the pressures of finding an identity can be overwhelming. Even today as a middle-aged man, I can still recall my high school paralysis when confronted with math. Ironically, I learned some of McKellar's life-lessons in a boxing gym: specifically, the ones about facing challenges and dealing with the fear of failure (or worse, mockery). If only her book had been around then, I might have spared myself some punishment. As she puts it, math helps us "...to exercise that part of the brain that makes you stronger, more capable and successful in life: the part that does not give up." By "not giving up" so much of our potential can be realized. I admit I'm disappointed that McKellar's book is aimed at teenaged women and not everyone who has failed to confront their math phobias. I advise the public-at-large to ignore her short-sightedness. Reading her books is the perfect antidote to the "dumb is cool" ethos plaguing our world.
Frank M.
Chatsworth, CA
Kiss My Math & Math Doesn't Suck April 29, 2009
T. Johnson (Dunnellon, FL USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was a little concerned about buying these books for my sons, ages 12, 13, 14 so I wrote in and inquired if it was just for girls or would boys benefit as well. Ms. McKellar personally responded saying they would learn math and probably learn something about girls in the process. I told the boys that I got an email from the author and what she said and they replied, "Yea, we learned that boys/men don't want a dumb girl but they don't want the girl to be smarter than them either." I told them they better study their math then. : )
The boys are enjoying the books and they are a good reminder of the basics of algebra.
 Great help January 19, 2009
Karmen Carlson
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I bought this book and my son used it to understand math. a little hard for him because it was wrote with girls in mind but it was so helpful he got thru that and it helped his math a ton.
Problem solved December 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
We ran across this book at Costco originally. I purchased the book with the hope that it would help my daughter's confidence with her math.
To my delight...it has and so much more. My daughter struggled with math not because she was not able to do the homework but has a mental block about math in general. This book makes math easy for GIRLS to understand and speaks to girls in their langauge and on their level with sound advice about life thrown in.
We purchased a second set of books for our friends daughter for Christmas...life changing book...!!!!
Danica helps girls with math, self-esteem, and the world December 5, 2008
Dr. James V. Blowers (Chester, VA USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I highly recommend this book for high-school girls. It is a guide or a text in elementary algebra. What makes this book stand out is that it uses silly analogies, it explains the algebra well, it boosts the girl's self-esteem, and it is relevant to her life.
One of the first things Danika does is that she gives us the order of operations: parentheses, exponentiation and so forth, spelling the acronym PEMDAS. She calls these pandas and shows some pandas doing some math. She even expands PEMDAS into "Pandas eat mustard on dumplings and apples with spice." She makes functions into sausage factories. (for veggie sausages, let's hope). Silly analogies like this have been shown to enhance memory of things. So this would be a good book to use for studying for a test.
She explains the math well. Her use of a cutesy daisy for an unknown shows that there is nothing particularly special in alphabet letters. I like her way of dealing with word problems. Sometimes you get an equation with a large number of minus signs; this can be kind of hairy. Her remedy is to multiply everything by -1. Most textbooks say to clear complex fractions by multiplying by a common denominator, but few have this type of advice. She tells us that word problems involves English grammar as well as mathematics, and lists the mathematical equivalents for such expressions as "is less than" or "three times".
The book is not entirely about math. Math for some reason causes stress in people, including high-school girls. So she includes plenty of material on how to relieve stress. She tells girls how to deal with boys in an assertive and positive way. And she has plenty of testimonials from girls who deal with mathematics in some way.
One of her chapters is entitled "Nope, she never gets off the phone". She starts this chapter, on word problems, with a problem that has appeared in everyone's lives. There are two phone plans, which she calls Fabulous Fones ($14/month and 10 cents/min) and Happy Talk (no monthly charge and 30 cents/min) and she poses the problem of which is best. This word problem leads to an equation with a solution that tells when you should switch from one plan to the other. She shows us how to solve real world problems as well as the problems one is likely to encounter on math tests. One of the best sections of the book is a list of possible careers for women and how math is used in each.
Here are a few tips for improvement. She brings up a phrase "seven less than twice x". She tells us that this should not get a < sign because it is not a sentence. But what about the student that writes 7 - 2x? She should explain how this should be 2x - 7 instead. She brings up exponents in a few places and even has a good sidebar on how sending a kitty video to 5 people who in turn sends to 5 people can quickly reach a huge number of people. She should emphasize here that this could cause problems for web servers. Further, I would liked to have seen a section on what exponents and the exponential function mean for our world; many of today's problems are caused by exponential growth of people and material possessions.
But this is an improvement on her previous book and I highly recommend this book for young girls. She has helped bring mathematical literacy to the world.
Showing reviews 16-20 of 38
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