Back to School with DK - How to be a Math Genius by Mike Goldsmith

It's the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas. It's back to school time and DK is celebrating by offering discounts on many of their educational reference books.

Need to know more about English, math, science or history or another subject? DK probably has a book for you. Whether your child is taking his or her first steps to school or entering their final year, these books can start the school year off right. By the way, many of these books aren't just for kids. Even adults can learn a thing or two.

Click here or on the icon to the left to see the list of books in the Back to School Boutique.

Today, I have a review of one of those books.

How to be a Math Genius talks about the brain and math while using games, logic problems, puzzles, and activities to boost your brain power.

This is such a fun book! It's very similar to How to be a Genius also by DK Publishing (my review), but this book focuses on how your brain tackles math. Therefore, the brain games are math related.

The book features terrific illustrations that are bright and exciting. It's filled with interesting facts about the brain and uses some fun exercises (labelled "Brain Games") to explain a point and emphasize the information that's presented. The main things I loved about this book is that it made math accessible and showed how much of our daily lives revolve around math. There's mapping, probabilities, sequences, patterns, measurements, shapes, codes and ciphers...it goes on and on. There's even a little history thrown in.

All of the brain games were fun, but many of them were challenging. However, math isn't my best subject. It's written for 10-14 year-olds and I think kids will love this book. I think adults, like me, might enjoy this book, too. However, those poor in math might be discouraged and find the puzzles and games too hard. I love that the book has some tips on how to be better at math. I sure could use these. Regardless, it's filled with amazing information and facts about the brain and math.

One of my favourite pages is about the Big zero (page 30-31). It talks about how important 0 is. Who knew that nothing was something? ;)

The book also features many famous math geniuses. These include: Pythagoras, Archimedes, Karl Gauss, Leonhard Euler, Isaac Newton, and Alan Turing. I had heard of some of these people, but not all of them. The information presented was interesting nevertheless. I found the two-page spread of historical women, who broke into the mostly-male-dominated field of math, particularly interesting.

The table of contents lists the major sections and topics within each of those sections. The back of the book contains a glossary, index, and answers to the brain games.

Highly recommended.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit DK's website.

I'd like to thank Chris at DK Canada for this review copy.

How to be a Math Genius by Mike Goldsmith, Dorling Kindersley (DK), ©2012. ISBN 9780756697969(Hardcover), 128p.