It’s Kangaroo’s birthday, but no one will play with him: not the emu, the platypuses, the koalas, or even the dingos. They all have too many things to do. What exactly are they doing? They’re using multiplication to figure out just how many things they have to do to plan a big surprise for Kangaroo!

Best Children’s Science Books 1997 (Science Books and Films)

Yee-hah! It's rodeo time!

Bareback bronc riding, barrel racing, calf roping, the livestock show, the fiddling contest, and don't forget lunch -- how are Katie and Cameron going to fit it all in and still have time to help their uncle, Cactus Joe, with chores? By making a schedule, of course. But making a schedule and sticking to it turn out to be two very different things!

The bugs in Coach Caterpillar's gym class are learning a new dance. But Centipede can't do it! If he can't learn the directions left, right, forward, and backward, this class will be one big FLOP!

Blue Ribbon Blueberry Pie. If the bear cubs gather enough nuts, seeds and blueberries, Mama Bear has agreed to make her special, lip-smacking-good pie.

Each time they fill their baskets, the cubs count berries, seeds and nuts by putting them in groups of tens and ones to see if they have enough for pie.

Everyday activities such as sharing a meal, sorting socks and getting ready for school can be part of learning math. In the MathStart Series,  everyday life is the basis for each entertaining story. Simple math concepts are embedded in each story so that young children can intuitively understand them. Adults can use the creative suggestions for activities in the back of each book to extend learning opportunities with children.

Developmentally appropriate and correlated to school grade levels and the curriculum standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, MathStart  can give children a head start!Blue Ribbon Blueberry Pie is the best—but do these bear cubs have enough ingredients to bake one? Regrouping their berries, nuts, and seeds by tens and ones reveals that one cub has not done her fair bear share. John Speirs's irresistible bear cubs make this lesson in regrouping one children will enjoy.

Blue Ribbon Blueberry Pie is the best—but do these bear cubs have enough ingredients to bake one? Regrouping their berries, nuts, and seeds by tens and ones reveals that one cub has not done her fair bear share. John Speirs's irresistible bear cubs make this lesson in regrouping one children will enjoy.

Four kids and their sidekick, Petey the parrot, run a sometimes thriving lemonade stand whose patrons include all kinds of wacky neighbors—even a juggler. They create a bar graph to track the rise and fall of their lemonade sales. Illustrator Tricia Tusa has imbued the story with her delightful sense of humor and has made understanding bar graphs a breeze.

How many different ice-cream sundaes can you make? With 6 ingredients to choose from, there are so many combinations. Read all about the sundaes they're making at the school picnic. Math has never been so delicious!

Does a polka-dotted sock match a striped sock? Young children will learn about matching, an important early math skill, as a lonely striped sock searches the house for its mate. They will may even be inspired to practice this skill in their own sock drawers!

Best Children's Science Books 1997 (Science Books and Films)

The yellow cars beep! The red cars vroom! As Molly plays with her big brother’s toy cars, readers will see and recognize patterns, an essential first step in learning to reason from the specific to the general. But can Molly put the cars back in the right order before her brother returns?

The bugs are on parade. One is big, the next is bigger, and the next is the biggest bug of all. Learning how to compare and contrast sizes is an important early math skill and one of the most basic forms of mathematical reasoning. In The Best Bug Parade children are introduced to this concept by some goofy-looking bugs who form a parade. Author Stuart J. Murphy and illustrator Holly Keller have made comparing sizes an enjoyable activity for the very youngest math student.

Missing Mittens

Every animal on Farmer Bill's farm is missing one mitten. Readers can investigate odd and even numbers as they unravel this mitten mystery!

Splitting things in half may seem like an easy thing to do, but when two siblings and a pizza are involved, things can get messy. Children learn about fractions at school but fractions are also an important part of everyday life outside the classroom.In this riotous book, Stuart J. Murphy and G. Brian Karas introduce the simplest of fractions, 1/2.

Shopping, counting, and a birthday present all add up to a surprise ending on Mall Mania Day! A lighthearted look at addition strategies

It's About Time. . .

. . . to wake up.

. . . to learn, to play, to read.

. . . to cuddle up in the blankets and to dream.

A twenty-four -- hour day is full of great things to do! Endearing illustrations depicting things kids do every day make this an easy introduction to the skill of telling time, perfect for very young readers.

Elephants, rabbits, and birds shop in this funny grocery store. Can you guess what the little rabbit wants more of? Munchy, crunchy carrots, of course! And fewer of? Squirmy worms and chewy peanuts (yuck!). So why is his mother buying all those cans of worms?

It's 4 tickets for the Treetop Coaster! Just 2 for the Elephant Twirl! five cousins each have 20 tickets to spend at Safari, and a little algebra will tell them how many rides they can try. But who will dare the death-defying Terrible Tarantula?

Everyday activities such as sharing a meal, sorting socks, and getting ready for school can be part of learning math. In the MathStart series, everyday life is the basis for each entertaining story. Simple math concepts are embedded in each story so that young children intuitively understand them. Adults can use the creative suggestions for activities in the back of each book to extend learning opportunities with children.

Developmentally appropriate and correlated to school grade levels and the curriculum standards of the National Council of Teachers Of Mathematics, MathStart can give children a head start!

Follow along and count coins with Jessie and her friends as they are transformed into a clown, a monster, and more at the face painting booth. With a naughty cat underfoot and festive illustrations by Lynne Cravath, this coin counting story is sure to be a favorite.

Welcome to neighborhood dog show! First Maxie speaks. Second Baxter begs. Third Daisy rolls over, but will Henry the fourth steal the show? Learning ordinals with this pack of playful pooches will have readers sitting up and begging for more.

This busy family needs a vacation, but they don’t know where to go. Mom and Dad want peace and quiet. Grandma wants to go somewhere hot. Fluffer wants to go somewhere that pets can go, too! The pig-tailed narrator gathers all this data and makes a chart to help determine the perfect vacation destination. Learning math is fun when a vacation is the answer!

Scream down the Dare-Devil Coaster and whirl around in the Twin Spin cars! Join in the carnival fun as 11 friends divide up to fit on the 2-to-a-seat roller coaster and the 4-to-a-cup teacups ride. Making new friends and practicing predivision skills have never been so exciting!

Shark Swimathon

The Ocean City Sharks have to swim 75 laps by the end of the week, and every day they figure out how many laps are left to go. Swimming and subtraction are all part of the fun!

Ride along with trucker Jill and her dog as they add up the animals zooming by. But these are no ordinary animals, and they're bound for a surprise destination!

Kangaroo is back! In this story he and his friends at camp divide into halves, thirds, and fourths to form teams at field day. Readers will cheer on this rowdy crew of Australian animals as they swim, canoe, play tug-of-war, and have a good, goofy time.

Captain Invincible and his intrepid space-dog, Comet, are on a perilous journey back to Earth!

Throughout their mission, the fearless captain and his canine sidekick encounter asteroids, poisonous gas, and alien beings. But will their knowledge of three-dimensional shapes, including cubes, cones, and pyramids, help our heroes navigate past these obstacles -- and make it safely home?