Mathematical Adventures!

Chalkdust

22 February 2021

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Ioanna Georgiou is a mathematics teacher from London and Asuka Young is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. Their book, Mathematical Adventures! (Amazon UK, Waterstones, Tarquin), is a children’s book the takes the reader on a journey through the history of maths.

Style

Mathematical Adventures! takes the reader through the development of maths in a series of colourful and well illustrated pages. It covers the development of numbers and algebra and some famous historical maths problems, before catching up with more recent maths such as differently sized infinities and Cantor’s diagonal argument. It encourages the reader to stop and think about problems themselves throughout the book.

Control

The book contains very clear and readable explanations that would be very suitable for a parent reading with a child.

Damage

This book doesn’t shy away from difficult ideas, such as the existence of different sizes of infinity, and offers an excellent opportunity for a child to meet interesting bits of maths that would often be deemed “too difficult” for a few more years. An adult reader who is keen on maths (the kind of person who is likely to be reading Chalkdust!) will probably be familiar with the majority of the ideas in this book, but it would be a great way to rediscover and share these ideas with a younger relative.

Aggression

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone looking for something to read with a younger relative. I’ll be saving my copy for a few years until me niece is old enough to read it with me.