New Books: Zero the Hero

Much like the book I last posted about, Zero the Hero (about to be released later this month) is a math-lesson picture book that doesn't feel anything like a lesson, because it actually tells a story. Author Joan Holub and illustrator Tom Lichtenheld (who clearly has a talent for this sort of thing, having also illustrated the similarly clever letter book E-mergency last year) make the titular digit a sympathetic outcast among the other numbers. At first he's looked down upon because he has no effect whatsoever on addition and subtraction—and then he's feared and cast out because he makes the other numbers disappear in multiplication.

But, as tends to happen in these sorts of stories, they soon find they miss the lovable donut-shaped guy—not just because he's amiable, but also because they've completely lost the ability to do important things, like multiply themselves by 10, without him. And that's before they're taken prisoner by a group of suitably martial Roman numerals—at which point Zero comes to the rescue with an ability only he has. (I won't spoil the, um, surprise.)

Golub weaves the math—basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and of course the key concept of zero itself—seamlessly into the storyline, and Lichtenheld's whimsical, cartoon-y art draws kids right in. It's one of those picture books our seven-year-old and our three-year-old like to read together. (And what's more heart-warming than that, especially when the seven-year-old is reading it to the three-year-old?)

It's become a particular favorite of the younger one, and while I can't say how deeply the math lessons are penetrating his brain as he reads the book again and again, the exposure can't hurt. Even at this age, a lesson that doesn't feel like a lesson? Parental nirvana.

[Cover image courtesy of Henry Holt/Christy Ottaviano Books]

Security Blanket: 365 Penguins

Three-year-old Griffin is at the stage with books where I can hardly keep up with his current favorites—they literally seem to change every day. But there are a handful I can always rely on his continuing to ask to be read to him at bedtime. One is the oversize 2006 instant classic 365 Penguins, by the French team of Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet.

I remember being struck by the book when it first came out—it was a favorite of Griff's older brother, Dash, back then—and thinking that it has a lot going for it. First, there's the design: huge spreads of graphic black, white, and orange, depicting an ever-growing population of penguins sent, day by day over the course of a year, to an unsuspecting nuclear family's home. There's the learning aspect: The whole book is in fact a beautifully designed series of multiplication lessons, as the family uses math to figure out the best way to efficiently house, feed, and just plain deal with their new avian companions. There's the surprise environmentalist ending, featuring the eccentric ecologist Uncle Victor and a polar bear. There's even the Where's Waldo?-esque game the author and illustrator subtly slip in, involving a single blue-footed penguin named Chilly.

Thanks to all of that, 365 Penguins grabbed us from the start, and it's never let go. Dash still enjoys leafing through it at seven, and by the time Griff got to it, it was already on the hallowed Sendak-Dr. Seuss shelf. Which is exactly where it belongs, I think.

[Cover image courtesy of Abrams Books for Young Readers]