Missing Math: A Number Mystery
Would you miss math and numbers if they disappeared one day? If you couldn’t count, or add, or measure, or keep score, or tell time… life might get rather difficult. It’ll take a crack detective to solve the mystery of where all the numbers went. Written in verse, here is the story of how the world falls apart without numbers, and the quest to get them back immediately. As an owl judge laments:

Our calendars have empty squares,
so who can tell the date?
This might be April, May, or June—
We’ll have to estimate.

Artwork: Drawn and painted on a computer.

“When a town’s numbers suddenly disappear, the residents discover how much they depend on numerals in their everyday lives.” Booklist

A Chicago Library Best of the Best Book

A Florida Book Awards Bronze Medal Winner

K–3. 32 p. Full color. Marshall Cavendish, 2008. 978-0-7614-5385-7.

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 The Detective

For a video preview of Missing Math,
click here

Read the behind-the-scenes story of the book in this post on the I.N.K. blog.

ACTIVITY: Have a scavenger hunt to find examples of people using numbers and math at school. Ideas:
• The gym teacher timing a race
• The cashier in the cafeteria
• A scorekeeper at a sports event
• A student measuring for an art project
• A librarian cataloging books

How many examples can your class find in one day?