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I Was Told There Would Be No Math
June 13, 2007
I've noticed a veritable plethora of books this year dealing with, of all ungodly subjects, math. It seemed innocent enough in
The Puzzling World of Winston Breen. And I was willing to shut my eyes to it in
The Lemonade War. But about the time I ran across a fictional work with a plot hinging on algebra (
Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra by Wendy Lichtman) I began to suspect that I was losing my mind. Math and fiction? Why the world's gone all higglety-pigglety on us! Up is down! Right is wrong! Math is fun!
But how could I be so short sighted? After all, when a Mr. Mark Dominus decided to make an
economic analysis of a book on his blog, what did he pick? Why
A Bargain for Frances, of course of course. After a bit of particular captivating probing into the depths of trade and "backsies" (as it were), Dominus sums it up thusly:
Good children's literature does reward a close reading, and like good adult literature, reveals additional depths on multiple readings. It seems to me that books for small children are more insipid than they used to be, but that could just be fuddy-duddyism, or it could be selection bias: I no longer remember the ones I loved as a child that would now seem insipid precisely because they would now seem insipid.
But the ability to produce good literature at any level is rare, so it is probably just that there only a few great writers in every generation can do it. Russell Hoban was one of the best here.
Thanks to
Oz and Ends (not to mention the child_lit listserv) for the link.
Posted by Elizabeth Bird on June 13, 2007 | Comments (2)
