Math Books to Tickle the Fancy of the Highly Able

Mathematically gifted students enjoy math as recreation and enjoy challenging themselves with accelerated learning. Unfortunately, basic math textbooks are crafted for a diametrically opposed readership of reluctant and remedial students. Here are some titles to tantalize the high-end math student, and perhaps convert a few others to the joy of numbers.

For middle-schoolers of either stripe, try Danica McKellar's Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail. Ms. McKellar starred in television's The Wonder Years and The West Wing. She also graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with a degree in mathematics and has published original mathematics research. As a pop-culture celebrity with advanced academic achievements, she counters the stereotypical image of the gifted student. From this platform, she coaches, encourages, and inspires young mathematicians, demonstrating practical problem-solving strategies in the context of engaging chapters such as "How to Entertain Yourself While Babysitting the Devil Child" and "Who's the New Cute Foreign Exchange Student?"

Some "oldies but goodies" from Marilyn Brown go "outside the box" of traditional math curricula, reaching out to both math lovers and math phobics: Math for Smarty Pants, The Book of Think, or How to Solve a Problem Twice Your Size, and The I Hate Mathematics Book.

Theoni Pappas has published math titles which cross a wide range of ages and academic development. There are math-inspired poems and choral readings (Math Talk: Mathematical Ideas in Poems for Two Voices), math quotations (The Music of Reason: Experience the Beauty of Mathematics Through Quotations), and math calendars (Math-A-Day: A Book of Days for Your Mathematical Year and annual wall calendars for beginning and more advanced mathematicians). Puzzles of varying difficulty are presented as a collaboration between the author, the reader, and, occasionally, the author's cat Penrose (e.g. The Adventures of Penrose, the Mathematical Cat, Math for Kids and Other People, Too, and Fractals, Googols, and Other Mathematical Tales).

The brief and entertaining biographies of mathematicians from around the world illustrate their individual determination and achievements and remind us of the obstacles that each overcame in Mathematicians are People, Too: Stories from the Lives of Great Mathematicians (2 vols.), by Luetta Reimer and Wilbert Reimer.

Two books that blend creative mathematical thinking and literature at a middle school level are The Number Devil : A Mathematical Adventure by Hans Magnus Enzensberger & Rotraut Susanne Berner and The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures by Malba Tahan & Patricia Reid Baquero. Gifted students are ready to look at topics from an interdisciplinary perspective, so math and literature, math and music, math and art are all good enrichment channels.

For the youngest mathematicians, Mitsumasa Anno's picture books are enjoyable as read-alouds as well as for independent readers. In addition to the primary story of these books, Anno includes games, puzzles, etc. which extend the mathematical concepts illustrated (beautifully illustrated, at that) in the main part of the book. Try Anno's Math Games and Anno's Math Games 2, Anno's Magic Seeds and Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar.

Offer a variety of math connections and levels of sophistication in your library. The most able students can intimidate math specialists as well as librarians. Don't let your math phobias hold back students who would be treading water in the general math curriculum. Read these books yourself and you may become a convert!