Epinions.com

January 2001
5 Star Rating

Math doesn’t have to mean suffering! I hit the jackpot with a wonderful book called The Grapes of Math: Mind Stretching Math Riddles. The concept is very simple. Present riddles relating to mathematics in a way that children will be challenged yet entertained. Each riddle is expressed in the form of a poem and is accompanied by an illustration of the problem. The challenge for the child is to solve the riddle as quickly as possible. The riddle gives a hint to a strategy that will allow for a better solution than counting each item in the illustration.

The riddle from which the book gets its name is as follows:

I stroll along a vineyard path,
   And there I see the Grapes of Math!
Overhead the sun is blazin’
   Soon each grape will be a raisin.
How many grapes are on the vine?
   Counting each takes too much time.
Never fear, I have a hunch
   There is a match for every bunch!”

The picture that goes along with this poem shows two vines, each with several bunches of purple and green grapes.  Purple grapes are in bunches of seven, and green grapes are in bunches of three.

The key is to mentally create sets of purple and green grapes to allow counting or multiplication by a number. In this case, the number is ten (1 set of green grapes + 1 set of purple grapes = 1 set of 10 grapes). By counting the sets of 10,
the reader can more quickly reach the answer.

The riddles are challenging, even for the mathematically inclined like me. The one with the grapes gave me a headache for a few second. The answer wasn’t obvious at all to my daughter
(7 years old). At first she tried grouping all of the green grapes together and all of the purple grapes together. This required her to be able to count by 7’s and then add 15 and 35, which was more than a little nerve-wracking for her. However, after several minutes thought, she finally arrived at the answer. Counting by 10’s is easy for her. With a huge grin, she yelled the answer “50!” Mission accomplished. Mathematical success never felt so good to her, I’m sure.

The solutions often lie in pattern recognition. By breaking down hard problems into smaller ones that can be more easily solved, the child learns problem-solving strategies that might otherwise go undeveloped. In at least a few cases, there are multiple ways to reach the right answer. Different skills are needed based on the solution. In many cases, being able to count by (or multiply) 3’s, 5’s, and 10’s is all that is required. In others, the child must be able to add sums up to 12 and/or be able to do simple subtractions.

One nice feature of The Grapes of Math is that it contains a set of problem solutions at the end of the book. Each illustration is marked to show how sets can be constructed,
and text is supplied to explain the optimal solution. On a few of these, my daughter and I said, “That’s not the way WE did it!”

Grapes of Math is intended for children ages 7-10. The vocabulary is appropriate for the age level. However, in several cases, I had to help my daughter break down the problems and count by numbers like 7 and 9. While she is often frustrated with math, she enjoyed this book. She learned not only abstract skills, like estimating a total number and subtracting the missing entries to get the answer, but she was also able
to practice her addition and subtraction.

The illustrations in The Grapes of Math are brightly colored. The high contrast colors make it extremely easy to count items. Even in the cases where the riddles were too hard for my daughter, we had fun counting the objects and checking the answers. We also played around with finding even more ways
to break down the problems in order to find the answer.

The author of The Grapes of Math is Greg Tang, a man with numerous years of experience in teaching mathematics to students from kindergarten to college age. He is a man who believes that problem-solving skills are the key to success in math. A note at the end of the book explains the approach. Teach kids to be open to alternate solutions. Look beyond
the obvious to find better answers. Think in terms of more manageable numbers and patterns. In doing so, math becomes a set of simple rules rather than a jumbled heap of complex ones.

This is truly one of the most unique books that I have seen.
If my daughter’s experience is typical, it might serve to make math less intimidating and more fun. I highly recommend this book for children who are overwhelmed by math (and for the parents who might also struggle with it).

Gracef, Chicago IL

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