Last to Finish: A Story About the Smartest Boy in Math Class (Adventures of Everyday Geniuses)
The second picture book in The Adventures of Everyday Geniuses series features Max, a third-grader who had always liked math until his teacher started using a timer for testing the class on multiplication facts. Max clutches when he tries to hurry. When his missing math folder reveals that Max has been working problems from the older brother’s algebra book “for fun,” he is invited to join the school math team as well as a program for accelerated math students. Tinted with colorful washes, ink drawings illustrate the story with sympathy and humor. One particularly expressive picture illustrates the phrase “my mind freezes” with a drawing of unhappy Max seated at his school desk, his head turned into a snowman’s noggin, carrot nose and all. The well-phrased text also reassures children that understanding is more important than memorization and that a strength in one area of learning can offset a weakness in another. Grades 1-3. --Carolyn Phelan