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Wendy Lichtman, Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra

Page history last edited by Lisa Gordis 15 years, 11 months ago

Bibliographical information:

Lichtman, Wendy. Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra. New York: Greenwillow Books, 2007.

 

Brief summary:

Eighth-grader Tess is a math whiz, but other aspects of her life are challenging. She knows that there's organized cheating on a history exam, but isn't entirely sure who's involved. And her mother's suspicions about the apparent suicide of her friend's wife worry her as well. She can't understand why her mother doesn't take her suspcions to the police, so she does some investigation of her own. Meanwhile, she tries to make sense of her perplexities using concepts from algebra.

 

Comments:

The use of math terms to represent human relationships is interesting, and some of Tess's musings on the difference between numbers and people are especially apt. For example, she describes eighth-grade social status in terms of inequalities. At the end of this chapter, though, she notes that "In math, if a number is greater than or less than another one, it never changes. . . .But with people, that's not the way it works (5)." I also like her symbols for her friends, including |m| for her friend Miranda, because Miranda "is the most positive person I know" (28). The mysteries themselves are less compelling, though of course it's more realistic not to have eighth-graders actually solve major crimes.

 

Grade/Age level:

 Grades 4-9

 

Cautions:

The book includes a sad (and possibly suspicous) death, which led my daughter to ask some questions about how the character died.

 

If you like this book, you might also like . . .

Chasing Vermeer, The Westing Game, An Abundance of Katherines.

--Lisa Gordis

 

 

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