What makes this even neater is that most everyone knows her – she played the character Winnie on The Wonder Years, and was part of the cast of West Wing for a few seasons.
The subtitle is "How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail". But this is an excellent book – for either gender! One could argue that it takes more than reading a chapter on a topic to go from terrified to masterful … and that is perhaps true. But if reading a chapter can help, then many of the chapters in this book should be read. The explanations are clear, and in some cases novel, and she has ways to help a student remember the ideas that could really help when test time comes. As an example – she compares improper fractions to tennis shoes (because they are the ones you use most often), and mixed fractions to high heels (because there are some situations that just call for them – including those situations where you have to look good). In doing this she takes on a very important math idea – the same number can have different 'representations' and a true master knows when each is appropriate.
I really liked the 'Testimonials' – brief notes from other women who used to struggle with math and are now using math in their careers. And everyone likes self-tests – Danica includes three:
* Are you a Math-O-Phobe? (afraid of math)
* Do You Have Trouble Focusing – or Are You a "Focus Superstar"?
* What's Your Learning Style?
She finishes up the book with a troubleshooting guide (!) and a list of online resources (with more on her website).
There were a couple of quibbles I had – the most severe was a too sketchy explanation of the order of operations using PEMDAS (ugh!). To her credit – she has fixed this on her website (www.mathdoesntsuck.com – what else?). The paperback edition caught several typos – also listed on the website for those with the hardcover edition. And I might have had another minor complaint, but it's buried in my notes somewhere …. (sigh)
All in all, I highly recommend this book (for the appropriately aged student) and wish Ms. McKellar tons of luck!
Math Doesn't Suck was named one of the top 100 books of 2007 (by Amazon). She's following her success with a sequel: Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-algebra Who's Boss this summer. Should be interesting AND entertaining!
First posted June 24, 2008 on Myspace