Templar Publishing Molly and the Mathematical Mystery

My children (5 and 8 years old) absolutely love this book. It has provoked lots of discussion about mathematical concepts and caused them to notice the applications of maths all around them.

Can't gush enough about this book. My 5 year old loves it as does the 8 year old. It makes mathematics so hands on and makes for much discussion! And lots of ideas. Beautiful to look at and handle.

I am always on the lookout for children's math books that actually spark children's curiosity and engage the in mathematical thinking, rather than just having them absorb the mathematics as it's presented. It's hard to do, but this book does it beautifully. My kindergartener was instantly hooked, and has been begging me to read it with her. The illustrations are beautiful, and as a math teacher, I love how the book engages with big idea mathematics (infinity, self-symmetry, dimensions), and especially imagination. Imagination and creativity were largely missing from my own childhood mathematics experiences, and I love sharing with my children the beauty of mathematics that it took me to adulthood to discover.

To quote a mathematician - "what books are to reading, play is to mathematics". This book by Eugenia Cheng and Aleksandra Artymowska is a perfect medium that makes math playable on a book, joyfully.The reader is challenged to solve puzzles on every page, based on the clues left by Molly. In solving the puzzles, one needs to flip the pop-ups, connect them, fold them, weave them, mess with them...After all that mess about, Voilà! the secrete of math reveals itself in front of your eyes! Often, my 7-year-old and I are not quite sure what happened and how it had happened, we were simply captured by the new discovery and the amazement, and we are filled with so much excitement and curiosities that we just want to keep on exploring. It was an overwhelmingly fun book, I had to ration the book for two pages a day so that we can immerse in this fun for a whole week.My original goal was to find a book that teaches math is not just numbers and the four basic operations (which is what first-grade school math all about). My daughter was learning to hate math from school math. I think this book is a strong rebuttal that math is boring and constraining. It has revealed so much freedom in playing with math.Finally, this book is exquisitely beautiful and well designed. Love and recommend to readers and players of all ages.

This book is so lovely! It's really big, and it's printed on heavy cardstock paper. I haven't read all of the notes for Molly yet because I don't want to crease the pages before I give it away as a gift. But I've read the rest of the story and it's just a really fun book to play with. Molly goes to different places and they're all decorated with tons of color all over the pages and intricate designs. There are lots of different flaps and things besides the little notes for Molly. My favorite page has a big spinning wheel with all these moving discs. Definitely the kind of book I would have spent a long time with when I was 9. There's also a section in the back with a few more mathematical concepts and definitions beyond the ones mentioned in the story. I think those might be geared towards the older kids that read this book. All of the math terms have a definition using picture examples and I learned a few things even as an adult, LoL. :)