Franco, B. (2003). Mathematickles. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books. 

Mathematickles is a wonderfully fresh and creative look at poetry. The book is a collection of lyric poems about the seasons and all of the beautiful things in nature that take place as the year passes. The poems are lyric and not narrative because they capture a specific moment, feeling, or scene. For example:

ice puddle + snow boot = creakgroanCRACK 

The poem above describes the moment when you step on some frozen water and your shoe cracks and falls through. The entire book is a specialized poetry book. The poems are all by Betsy Franco and they are all on the same topic- the seasons. 

My favorite aspect of this poetry collection is the way the illustrator and author worked together to make some of the poems into concrete poems. For example, on page 14 there is a poem that reads:

      sphere

     sphere

+sphere

_______

snowman

This is a concrete poem because the sizes of the spheres represent the sizes of the actual spheres on a snowman and they give the reader a visual image of the snowman. I think the way they were able to do this is brilliant. 

Some of the poems in this book rhyme. For example, crisp air + shadows tall + cat's thick coat = signs of fall. Others, however, did not rhyme. For example, holes + nuts - nuts = squirrel hide & seek. 

This book connects to student's interest for a couple of reasons. First, students have all experienced the seasons and the illustrations and creative ways the seasons are portrayed would capture anyone's interests who have ever been apart of them. Also, math is something that is not always enjoyable for students (and adults). This book turns it into something fun and lighthearted. If I was a child, I would enjoy this book because it takes some of the scary out of math. 

A text-to-self connection I had while reading this was with this particular poem:

tadpole= 2/3 frog. For the last two years I have been the science teacher at my elementary school. I taught about life cycles and of course frogs. This poem really made me giggle as it gives a really cute description of what a tadpole probably seems like to a child. 

Big Question: 

How did you feel about math before reading this book? How do you feel after reading this book? Try to think of a math poem that describes something in nature. 

-Haley