Writer Jon Scieszka and artist Lane Smith have just created the funniest math book ever. The Math Curse, published this month by Viking, is about a student who says her math teacher has put a curse on her. Suddenly, every moment of her day becomes a twisted math problem.
She sits in class and counts 24 students. How many ears are in the class? she wonders. And how many fingers? Then a dreadful division problem crops up when a girl brings 24 cupcakes to be shared by the 24 students--and the teacher.
Some of the math is just goofy: Does tunafish plus tunafish equal fournafish? How many feet in a yard? How many yards in a neighborhood?
"I wanted to write a funny book about math for a long time," says Scieszka, who was a teacher for 10 years. He and Smith have specialized in wacky books for kids, including The Stinky Cheese Man and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs.
All the math in The Math Curse came from real formulas and facts. Mrs. Fibonacci, the teacher, is named after a famous mathematician who lived 700 years ago.
When they first teamed up six years ago, Scieszka and Smith were told their ideas were too hard for kids. Scieszka didn't believe it for a minute: "I know from having taught for so long, and from the letters kids send to us, that kids really get what's fun about our books."
Some "get it" better than adults do, says Smith. "Kids see details in my pictures that adults just never notice."