This wonderful book illustrates both visually and in story the doubling of a number from 1 to one billion. In the story, a village girl in India outwits a raga who is hoarding the people's rice supply. She cleverly catches rice that is being spilled from one of the raga's rice baskets in order to turn it in to him for a reward. She at first modestly replies that he can reward her one grain of rice. When the raja insists on a more substantial reward, she instructs him to give her just one grain of rice that day; but each following day, for thirty days, he is to double the amount of rice he gave her the day before. The story then illustrates the delivery of rice to the village girl day by day. The book presents an engaging story, with equally engaging visuals. The amount of rice presented over the 30 days is illustrated. On the thirtieth day, the 2 pages of the book open up in additional folds to display together four pages of 256 elephants carrying baskets of rice containing 536,870,912 grains of rice. This book not only illustrates number and the concept of doubling, it inspires the desire to be knowledgeable about and clever in math. The story, without the mathematical teaching point, stands on its own. Highly recommended. Ages: K-upper elementary.
No comments:
Post a Comment