Book,
The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure
Holt Paperbacks, (May 2000)
Abstract
Young Robert's dreams have taken a decided turn for the weird. Instead of
falling down holes and such, he's visiting a bizarre magical land of number
tricks with the number devil as his host. Starting at one and adding zero and
all the rest of the numbers, Robert and the number devil use giant furry
calculators, piles of coconuts, and endlessly scrolling paper to introduce
basic concepts of numeracy, from interesting number sequences to exponents to
matrices. Author Hans Magnus Enzensberger's dry humour and sense of wonder
will keep you and your kids entranced while you learn (shhh!) mathematical
principles. Who could resist the little red guy who calls prime numbers "prima
donnas," irrational numbers ünreasonable," and roots "rutabagas"? Not that
the number devil is without his devilish qualities. He loses his temper when
Robert looks for the easy way out of a number puzzle or dismisses maths as
boring and useless. "What do you expect?" he asks. "I'm the number devil, not
Santa Claus." (Ages 10 to adult) --\_Therese Littleton, Amazon.com\_
