Book: 'Kiss My Math'

Vaughn Fortier-Shultz | The New Mexican

9/3/2008 - 9/4/08

Danica McKellar is a recognizable face to fans of The West Wing and The Wonder Years, and her best-selling book Math Doesn't Suck helped place her in the world of conscientious celebrities, but can she pick up the slack in Kiss My Math, her new book for people struggling with pre-algebra?

The answer is a resounding yes, because she knows what she's doing. As an international mathematician and huge math-education advocate, McKellar has had plenty of experience in the field already. And now, her wisdom has become available to us in the form of a hardbound guide that goes beyond the call of duty in more ways than one.

Unlike crummy, dull textbooks, Kiss My Math is entertaining while educational. Who beside McKellar would think to describe integers as mints, or use pandas as a lucrative metaphor for the order of operations?

For hard-core mathematics fans, every problem is still explored in depth; all the shortcuts are marked, and the long way to solve these problems is also given; sample tests are provided at the ends of chapters; and examples abound on every page. Helpful reminders and tips round out the book, allowing you to get a better grasp on the rules of mathematics being described. Plus, personality tests and celebrity quotes on math add flavor to an already anything-but-bland book.

The success stories of people who were once bad at math and are now analysts for the Pentagon or are TV directors will give hope to anyone — no matter how many tests they've failed.

If there is an easier way to solve a problem, the route to that solution is shown; where there is an important concept that you might have missed, there is a review; and in the places where the numbers have you lost, diagrams and footnotes go deeper to properly find an answer.

For everyone having trouble with math, get this down-to-earth book that will pull your grades up and intrigue even the most reluctant student.



Vaughn Fortier-Shultz is in ninth grade at Academy for Technology and the Classics. You can reach him at moosemanxl@gmail.com.