» Coyotes All Around (MathStart 2)

Coyotes All Around (MathStart 2) Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: 4 1/2* Round Up!
Comment: A group of coyotes wearing bright Hawaiian shirts (and a non-conformist in plaid) satisfy their mathematical and gustatory appetites in this clever "Mathstart" series book (Level 2; ages 6 and up). The Coyotes -- Clever, Cool, Careful, Clumsy, and young Little One--look out over the desert from the porch of their ranch. There are roadrunners everywhere, but no subpoenas. (The book judiciously omits crates labeled "ACME" label, or coyotes named "Wile E.") "'There must be hundreds of them!' said Cool Coyote." The coyotes separate to verify this, but Clever Coyote (after failing to catch a running roadrunner) claims, "I bet I can do it in my head and come really close." When Clever Coyote rounds the individual number counts to the nearest ten and adds them, his estimate is only two more than the actual count. In similar fashion, the coyotes compare their counts and rounded estimates of tasty grasshoppers and zebra-tailed lizards.

Steve Bjorkman paints his desert with soft shades of purple and dotted browns. Large green cacti break up this landscape, and the Hawaiian-shirted coyotes (wearing shades, sipping lemonade, chasing prey) give a playful air to the rounding lesson. Bjorkman's splashy, colorful style extends to the lizards, one of which peers at the reader from the bottom of the page. There's one very annoying discontinuity; however, and it's not possible to tell whether this is due to the illustrator, author, and/or publisher. On pp.14-15, Clever Coyote comments (about the lizards): "There can't be that many" and "Why don't you count them and see?" However, Clever Coyote is not pictured on the 2-page spread. One could also quibble over the implication that the coyotes' rounding is faster than adding. The book doesn't really compare adding rounded versus unrounded numbers, nor does it compare counting vs. estimating. As set up here, the coyotes' exact counts precede the rounding estimate; apparently, methods of estimating are beyond the book's scope.

Still, author Stuart J. Murphy presents the general topic clearly and in an entertaining manner. He gives the animals human personalities, while retaining--at least in Clever Coyote-their animal habits. On each spread, Murphy includes "factoids," information about coyotes and the desert environment (e.g., "Factoid: Roadrunners can fly, but they usually run. They can go as fast as 25 miles an hour.") These facts could lead to some interesting discussions about biomes, food chains, etc. The last two pages restate the rounding rules ("numbers that end in 5 or higher should be rounded up), and present several school and home activities to reinforce the concept.

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