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Books About Maths

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Maths Picturebooks List

Picturebooks can provide an excellent way of engaging pupils with maths. On this booklist, we have picked a selection of the best maths-themed stories that open opportunities to explore a range of mathematical concepts. Many thanks to Year 1 teacher Dean Boddington for working together with us to create this selection of the best children’s books about maths topics.

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Counting books for children

Julia Donaldson & Sharon King-Chai
Picturebook
A stunning counting book full gorgeous baby animals, with amazing flaps to lift and holes to peep through. From Julia Donaldson, bestselling author of The Gruffalo , and Sharon King-Chai, who together created the award-winnning Animalphabet.From a leopard with her cubs, to a frog and its tadpoles, young readers will delight in counting each creature's babies and seeing where they live. With rhyming text and a surprise search-and-find game, this is a read-aloud delight and an absolute must for the family bookshelf. A truly beautiful gift.
Caryl Hart
 & Nick East
Picturebook
Pasta Man has run out of Pasta Power. . . Can our young hero help him to get his powers back and defeat evil Madame Chilli, who wants to rule the world with lashings of chilli sauce?With action-packed adventure and bright, detailed artwork, this is the ultimate fun-filled counting storybook!
Valerie Bloom & David Axtell
Picturebook
A simple counting story from 1 – 10 that is written in the style of a Caribbean dialect, with stunning illustrations that will quickly grab the attention of young readers. This rhyming book written by much-loved poet Valerie Bloom introduces basic counting as well as showcasing a number of different fruits from the Caribbean. There is a glossary at the end of the book that explains the new words that readers may have encountered in the story.
Hollis Kurman
 & Barroux
Picturebook
This is a counting book with a difference - the counting is a context for a story about forced migration. We follow a family who are forced to flee a war-torn country. They board a boat and travel to safety in another country where the children go to school and make new friends. It's a hopeful and positive story which promotes kindness. Each page counts through different acts of kindness that helped the family in their difficult situation; 2 hands lifting the children to safety from the boat, 3 donated meals to fill the children up, 4 beds in a temporary shelter, 8 welcome gifts in the new home, 10 new friends to play with, etc. The simple format leaves plenty of space to think about and discuss the pictures, providing opportunities to discuss ways to be kind and to imagine what life might be like as a refugee.

Michelle Robinson
 & Tor Freeman
Picturebook
Ten fat sausages sizzling in the pan... decide to escape, if they can! Come on a great escape through the kitchen as we follow each sausage that decides to make a run for it. Will they succeed or will the cat, blender, plug hole or fan prove their downfall? Michelle Robinson's no-holds-barred humour is perfectly matched by Tor Freeman's mad-cap artwork. Hilarious and merciless, this tale will have you hooting out loud.
Emily Gravett
Picturebook
Ten cats discover three cans of paint and blotches, splotches and splats go everywhere!A funny exploration of colour from award-winning author/illustrator Emily Gravett, 10 Cats is a wonderfully simple and engaging picture book.While learning about counting and colours, very young children will delight in the adorable kittens on every spread and the simple text that is perfect for reading aloud.
Nick Sharratt
 & Sue Heap
Picturebook
A wonderful and unique look at counting and friendship.This very simple picture book is about two friends, Sue and Nick, who like very different things but are still best friends. They introduce us to all their favourite things from one boy called Nick and one girl called Sue to ten cakes for tea, and then all the way back down to one yellow moon shining in the night sky. The artwork is stunning with each artist contributing alternate pages in their own inimitable style. The deceptively simple text is perfect for children learning to read.

Picturebooks about number

Andrea Menotti
 & Yancey Labat
Picturebook
This large book is a showstopper among maths picture books. Emma and Aidan are trying to decide how many jellybeans they need. As they compete, the numbers get larger. The book offers a fantastic visualisation of larger numbers, especially the fold out million jellybean crescendo. Perfect to share 1-on-1 but it would equally enthral an assembly hall full of children!
Tony Ross
Picturebook
A funny tale of a centipede who gets sore feet and needs shoes and socks to help with his problem. Having always thought he had 100 feet, Centipede eventually realises that he doesn't have that many. In the end he gives up on the footwear and redistributes them to his lesser-footed friends. This would be a great book to look at doubling and halving (pairs of shoes) or sharing (look at how many of his shoes he could give to various creatures).
Tony Bradman
 & Miguel Sanchez
Picturebook
Join the Digits for another action-packed adventure!When the Digits start squabbling over whether odd or even numbers are best, Ten challenges everyone to a football match to settle the argument. Ideal for understanding odds and evens - you can count on the Digits to make numbers fun! This playful picture book series about a group of number friends is ideal for developing early maths skills.
Tony Bradman
 & Miguel Sanchez
Picturebook
It's party time at The Number Tower in this hilarious new story about a group of number friends. Three is very excited about having a birthday party. But when the other Digits arrive, things don't go to plan. There isn't space for everyone to sit or enough cake to go around. Can the Digits find a way to save the party and give Three the best birthday ever? Perfect for understanding greater and less, double and half - you can count on the Digits to make numbers fun!

Picturebooks about shape, space and measure

Steve Jenkins
Non-fiction Picturebook
This book is full of mind-blowing facts that readers young and old will find astounding, offering interesting context to the complex topic of time as well as distance and world history. It could be used across KS1 and KS2, either being used as a book to enjoy as a read-aloud and talk about the amazing facts or to delve deeper into each page and work through some of the related calculations.
Mac Barnett
 & Jon Klassen
Picturebook

There are three separate books in this trilogy of sublimely illustrated picture books where the main characters are shapes; Triangle, Square and Circle. Offering a story-based opportunity to explore shapes and discuss properties, each book develops the relationship between the shapes. The trilogy ends on a cliff hanger, with a mysterious shape appearing in the shadows but it is never revealed what it is. Children will love sharing their theories about the mystery shape and the stories provide a fantastic opportunity to assess understanding of shape properties and related vocabulary.

Mac Barnett
 & Jon Klassen
Picturebook

There are three separate books in this trilogy of sublimely illustrated picture books where the main characters are shapes; Triangle, Square and Circle. Offering a story-based opportunity to explore shapes and discuss properties, each book develops the relationship between the shapes. The trilogy ends on a cliff hanger, with a mysterious shape appearing in the shadows but it is never revealed what it is. Children will love sharing their theories about the mystery shape and the stories provide a fantastic opportunity to assess understanding of shape properties and related vocabulary.

Mac Barnett
 & Jon Klassen
Picturebook

There are three separate books in this trilogy of sublimely illustrated picture books where the main characters are shapes; Triangle, Square and Circle. Offering a story-based opportunity to explore shapes and discuss properties, each book develops the relationship between the shapes. The trilogy ends on a cliff hanger, with a mysterious shape appearing in the shadows but it is never revealed what it is. Children will love sharing their theories about the mystery shape and the stories provide a fantastic opportunity to assess understanding of shape properties and related vocabulary.

Naomi Jones
 & James Jones
Picturebook
No matter how hard she tries, Triangle doesn't roll like the circles, or stack like the squares...so she sets off to find friends that look exactly like her. But when she finds the other triangles, playtime isn't as fun. She misses the shapes that roll and stack; she misses being different. So she starts a new quest, one that gets all of the different shapes playing and having fun together!

Tracey Turner
 & Aaron Cushley
Non-fiction

‘How Many Mice Make An Elephant? and other big questions about size and distance’ will be an invaluable addition to any KS1 or KS2 classroom wishing to engage the students with maths and its uses.

Each double-page spread asks a different attention-grabbing size comparison question, ranging from ‘How many swimming pools in the sea?’ to ‘How many high jumps to the Moon?’ and ‘How many footballs fill the World’s biggest stadium?’ The answers are then calculated step-by-step and explained. A calculator will be useful as each page also summarises the calculation required in a ‘To Work It Out’ box.

The illustrations are bright and enticing, and every page also features a range of other fun facts about the topic in question. While you may not want to read through the whole book in one go, I can definitely see how a teacher could use this very valuably in the classroom.

For example, the page on ‘How many planet Earths fit inside the sun?’ would be a fantastic introduction to a Space topic, and asking children to estimate the correct answer before opening the page would add a great element of competition (in case you’re wondering, it’s 1,400,000 but you would have to reduce them to rubble and goo first). Some of the maths (and large numbers) will be very complicated for children at the younger age of the spectrum, and a wide range of units are used, so despite the ‘Say Hello to Big Numbers’ introduction and coverage of different units in ‘Measuring Different Things’ at the end, some teacher explanation may be required, but overall this would make a fantastic addition to any STEM bookshelf.

Alison Limentani
Non-fiction
Weight and mass often mean little to children without context. This book is brilliant for offering the context to the topic, with each page building on the last to compare the weight of different animals. It is fascinating to read the comparisons and children will begin to formulate their own questions and hypotheses long after the book is finished.

Picturebooks that invite mathematical discussion and problem-solving

Kes Gray
 & Jim Field
Picturebook
This fantastic author-illustrator duo always bring laughter into the classroom with their books and this time you get a helping of maths at the same time. Starting simply, the reader is asked to add different numbers of animal legs. The difficulty level increases as the book progresses and children love comparing their results at the end (with big cheers from those who get it correct).
Jean-Luc Fromental
 & Joëlle Jolivet
Picturebook
A funny story about a family who, on 1st January, start receiving a penguin each day through the post. There are mathematical challenges along the way that are suitable from Year 2 up to Year 6. Children will love listening to the story and pausing to calculate questions on a whiteboard too. With quirky and fun illustrations, this will quickly become a class favourite.
Tom Lehrer & Chris Smith
 & Elīna Brasliņa
Non-fiction

Tom Lehrer’s funny yet educational songs have engaged and enthused children (and adults) for over sixty years. His song, ‘The Elements’ can still be heard on TV shows today!

This book celebrates ‘That’s Mathematics’, another of Tom’s songs, which was handed over for public use in 2020. Author Chris Smith cleverly uses the songs to introduce mathematical puzzles and activities. The song is printed in full on the first page (with a QR code which gives even more content to use!) and then each double-page spread is inspired by a line from the song.

The first set of puzzles is all about counting sheep and has some lovely open-ended problems to enjoy. The book continues with pages on a variety of mathematical topics including division, shape and measure. There are many activities to try and all can be linked to the National Curriculum programme of study. Chris Smith has helpfully added key vocabulary on each page and an appendix which gives parents pointers to help them to unpick the maths within each page (there are also the answers if you really need them!).

The illustrations are delightful, with Elina Braslina’s joyful images of children exploring mathematics dotted throughout the book. It is a pleasure to pick out the little details on each page which are all there to complement the mathematical ideas. There are so many ways in which the book could be used within the KS1 classroom to extend learning following a maths input or to stimulate discussion and problem-solving, linked to topic work.

DK
Non-fiction
A great introduction to learning maths, this book teaches children the magic of numbers through play. Inside they'll deal with number bugs, creating a hungry adding robot, learning about subtraction by playing skittles, crafting 3D shape aliens, and even making a repeating pattern fruit wand.Covering a comprehensive range of maths topics, from counting and numbers, to shape and size, and measurements and time, this is the perfect first maths book for children. Every fun project features a mixture of bright photography and charming illustrations that support the easy-to-follow activity instructions. These creative hands-on activities support Early Years and Key Stage One maths curriculums taught in schools.Look I'm A Maths Wizard allows little readers to do what they do best - imagine, create, learn, problem-solve, and play their way to maths magic!

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If you’re looking for Maths storybooks for KSI or KS2, our Maths booklist gives you some ideas to explore maths concepts with your primary school class.

 

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