Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 25
 Make math more fun? Check out this one! August 24, 2007
J. A. Davis (Northern Michigan)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
First of all, I love the title of this book! When I saw it, I knew inside would be something equally clever and unique. Oh, was I right! This book is a visual and poetic feast, and yet, its focus is not on literature, but math. There are 16 riddles which challenge you to open your mind and solve mathematical problems by using a different way of thinking. Each riddle cleverly gives you some advice on how to solve it. For example, in "One Hump or Two?" you are asked, "Can you add the humps you see? Don't just count them one, two, three...To help you find the right amount, group by fives before you count." If you are really stumped, there is a handy Answer section in the back, complete with diagrams of each page as well as an explanation. The computer-generated illustrations are very visually appealing and the rhyming riddles are catchy. I love the titles too: Know Dice, Win-Doze, For the Birds, and Doggone It! to name a few. What a brilliant concept for a book! This is sure to make math easier to understand, not to mention fun for kids.
 A good book for making math literacy facile August 18, 2005
Michael Cammer (NY USA)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
The Grapes Of Math by Gregory Tang and Harry Briggs has one genre of math problems presented in an amusing fashion with good art. The genre is patterns of objects with breaks in the patterns. The children are expected to look at the patterns as groupings or shapes to figure out the total number of objects without counting one-by-one.
This is a good book. The kids like it. The problems are amusing, even bordering on tickling. My only problem with this book is that an overview of methods for solving the problems should be at the beginning. But so what? There are a few ways to look at the problems and the kids actually sit down to do them without being pestered.
Let me repeat this: after the initial disappointment that I had purchased math books, on their own the kids actually sat down to do the problems without being pestered. If this isn't an endorsement, then what is?
a book that makes math kids August 16, 2005
Mary Leo (CA)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
The Grapes of Math is a realization for all that math is all around us. An elementary student addresses many situations familiar to everybody that involve math. Her situations and problems are on-going and lead in many different directions, yet all still relative to math. The book is thought provoking and discussion inspiring. The book is most effective in teaching the relevance of mathematics in everyday life through creative riddles. Through its illustrations and imaginative word problems the book creates wonders and fun with every turn of the page for all ages. The Grapes of Math is a big success at motivating kids to see mathematics as a fun necessity.
My son got an excellent math start with this book. Since then, math problems get his attention rather than something to avoid. Now he is the top math student in his class. He often shows up on the Beestar math honor roll (a nice web site for math practice at Beestar.org). I think The Grapes of Math is the cornerstone of his achievement. I highly recommend it.
 Great idea August 2, 2005
J. Budde (Beaufort, SC)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book is wonderful. Finally there are great books that celebrate math!! This is an awesome book for older children. I'd say at least 1st grade (some Kindergartener would really enjoy it). However, done properly, it's too time consuming for a preschooler. My 3 year old, even though he's very bright, could only hang for 3 pages doing it the right way. After that we just kind of made up our own *way*. Don't be discouraged to buy it, though, because no matter what the age, you can never encourage math enough!!! Great book, great buy!!
More Riddles, Patterns, and Problem Solving July 15, 2005
Micole Roy (Sugar Land, Texas USA)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This great book provides the opportunity for children to enjoy mental math challenges. The riddles guide the reader to the author's solution. However, our son enjoyed looking for patterns and using his own clever ideas to quickly solve the problems. I gave this book to my six year old son the summer before he began second grade. He loved the rhymes and the pictures. He especially liked finding clever ways to count the objects without counting one by one. We made a family game of solving each riddle, working to see who would solve it first. Then we shared our strategies and reviewed the author's strategy which is presented in the back of the book.
I highly recommend this book! It provides good mental math practice in a fun way. It also reinforces the fact that there are many ways to solve a problem. Gifted children love patterns. This book builds on that and helps them to see additional ways in which finding patterns could be useful.
Showing reviews 6-10 of 25
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