The Best Of Times
The author ofThe Grapes  of MathandMath for All  Seasonscontinues his crusade to make math make sense by taking on the  biggest of math bugbears: the multiplication tables!Greg Tang's proven methods--giving kids tools rather than rules and more  memorization--pay off once again, as he uses rhymes and commonsense tricks to  walk through the multiplication tables from zero to 10. For example, if you know  how to multiply by two ("Two is very fast and fun, quickly double and you're  done. What's that you say, be more precise? Okay then, just add it twice!"),  then fours ("... please just always double twice!") and eights ("... doubling  three times works just great!") should be a cinch. Some of the rhymes are even  as clever as Tang's tips: Over a panda pool game, he advises, "Nine is faster to  compute if at first you overshoot. Here's a very clever tack, do 10 times and  then subtract! What is 9 x 9? It's ten 9's minus 9.... What is 9 x 7? It's ten  7's minus 7."Tang's text makes for a fun read-along, and illustrator Harry Briggs keeps  things interesting with his computer-generated, animal-inspired spreads, with  dancing chickens, ice-cream-flinging monkeys, and a fortunetelling cat. Kids  won't feel left out of the action either: each section ends with a couple of  challenges, and a key in the back spells out all the answers. (Ages 9 to 12)--Paul Hughes