Tyrannosaurus Math

Who can add an entire herd of triceratops, multiply the legs of a group of ankylosaurs, and estimate the distance to the next tasty meal?

TYRANNOSAURUS MATH!

He's a number-crunching dinosaur who chews on math problems as easily as he thunders through the trees. When his little sister is in terrible danger, T-Math even saves the day by using his measurable math skills. Is there anything he can't figure?

Who can add an entire herd of triceratops, multiply the legs of a group of ankylosaurs, and estimate the distance to the next tasty meal?

TYRANNOSAURUS MATH!

He's a number-crunching dinosaur who chews on math problems as easily as he thunders through the trees. When his little sister is in terrible danger, T-Math even saves the day by using his measurable math skills. Is there anything he can't figure?

Children's Literature

A dinosaur just hatched from an egg begins counting his claws and fingers. His mother names him Tyrannosaurus Math, and tells him to "Go figure." The counting begins as he counts the members of his family and then begins to count by twos, fives, and tens. Little episodes in his daily life have him adding and subtracting three digit numbers. He multiplies to count his teeth, and draws a picture to determine how many legs he would eat if he ate three ankylosaurs. He makes pictographs and even uses estimation to figure out how to rescue his sister. Finally, he and his family try to count the stars and end up using estimation. It all ends in a group hug and how they lived "mathematically ever after." The illustrations of the dinosaurs are large and colorful and the illustrations of the math concepts are simple and easy to understand. There is a pronunciation guide, and a page listing math terms and their meanings. The book is an entertaining overview of some math concepts and gives an amusing new perspective to math vocabulary. Reviewer: Vicki Foote

TYRANNOSAURUS MATH, a close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex, lived in the late Cretaceous Period, 65 to 68 million years ago, in Western North America. He and his siblings were eleven to fourteen feet tall, weighed five to seven tons, had two-and-a-half foot long arms, two-and-a-half foot long feet, and teeth that were ten inches long!

MICHELLE MARKEL, the author of five children's books, has also written for national newspapers and taught in elementary schools. Tyrannosaurus Math grew out of an experience in the classroom: "One day I was teaching math to second graders. Knowing how kids loathe word problems, I invented some of my own, using dinosaurs. The kids loved them." The rest is prehistory. Michelle lives near Los Angeles.

DOUG CUSHMAN, a Northern Californian now living in Paris, has written and/or illustrated more than one hundred children's books. In high school, Doug created comic books lampooning his teachers, and he sold them to classmates for five cents a piece.