What Parents Should Know
Simplistic art and dense text blocks make for a dull layout design; many activities will require adult assistance or prompting.

Common Sense Media Review
MATH FOR SMARTY PANTS takes on an almost impossible mission: endearing math to kids who fear it, hate it, or want nothing to do with it, and although the book introduces kids to mathematical ideas such as statistics and geometry, it's not a skills text.

It is a book jam-packed with solid math lessons packaged as tricks, jokes, and games, and it will be most useful to readers who will soon encounter these subjects in school or are already having a problem with them. Readers in either camp will likely need some adult help, encouragement, or insistence to work through the activities.

The book's dense design--thick text blocks with dark ink illustrations--results in a monotonous look that may bore the already resistant or dubious readers the author is trying to reach. All of the dark ink, when reproduced on unbleached paper, makes for a dull presentation and the simple cartoons lack much variation, but many of the young characters do sport lively expressions.

Despite its visual limitations, the book has other highlights. One chapter, "Math Trickery," likely to appeal to a wide range of youngsters, contains several activities kids can do on their own and should get a kick out of, using calculators to perform "magic." And one nine-year-old girl was impressed enough with the Möbius-strip exercise in the "Logic Puzzles" chapter to tuck the never-ending paper strip into her backpack for display at school the next day.

Marilyn Burns has written many other books about math, including another Brown Paper School Book, The I Hate Mathematics! Book, and The Greedy Triangle. Theoni Pappas's Math for Kids also uses games, puzzles, and tricks to bring math alive for young readers.