Thank you NetGalley and Jolieology, LLC for accepting my request to read and review Mate and Rix Escape Boredom.

Author: Jolie Curran
Published: 03/12/22
Genre: Children's Fiction -- Parenting & Families

Is this new math? Mate and Rix live in a Pet Store and want some place cozy to hang out. They need to fill x number of holes with pennies, and go about counting. Again, I ask, is this new math? If your child is taught start with the right side, carry a 1, this is not for you. If you are a teacher teaching how to add by starting on the right, this is not that.

The story is two-fold: First they are looking to make a fort. Second: They go about dressing the fort. I found both stories confusing for more than half of the telling. Towards the end of this short book, the pieces begin to come together.

The illustrations are darling. They aided in my understanding the book.

As a person who would read this to a child, I find it complicated. The math perplexed me and explaining where the pennies come from (not one) too convoluted.

FYI: I was taught how to add many, many, many years ago. Is this new math?

This was an amazing surprise. I did not have any hopes based on the cover but inside you find not only an interesting story but a relatable math lesson. And the math shows it’s work. Tt’s something that a kid could follow and understand. Greatly surprised this works well and I’d like to see more from this collection.

Kangaroo and hedgehog want to find a nice cozy space away from the regimented shelves of toys. They try several places that don't work for them until they find a nice place that needs help to be just right. This book goes a long way to encouraging thinking outside the box, creative problem-solving, and presents an alternative math technique that I have used for seventy years.
Frans Vischer (Illustrator) fills the pages with whimsical, colorful illustrations which add even more fun and meaning to this book.
I requested and received a free temporary e-book on Adobe Digital Editions from Jolieology, LLC via NetGalley. Thank you!

This book is super neat. It tells the story of a hedgehog and kangaroo who are bored in the petshop over night. They find a place to build a fort, but they find that there are holes in it and need to fill it with pennies. Over the course of the story several mathematical ideas are discussed including regrouping, the partial sums method, arrays, repeated addition, patterns and open number lines. I like that the book focuses a lot on lining things up, as a grade 3 teacher, whether we are talking about placevalue, arrays or regrouping, I am always reminding my students to try to organize their manipulatives, pictorial representations and equations into groups or lines. Even the smallest routines and concepts are reinforced in this story! I love that font is large and accessible. I could see this book being used as a read aloud in a primary classroom and the font is large enough that it would be easy to project or share in a small space like the carpet when students are gathered close to the teacher. As a grade 3 teacher I would love to have this book in my classroom library! I would definitely recommend it for parents and teachers of children in the age 4-10 range who are developing an understanding of addition as being related to counting. Younger children will not be ready for the regrouping and place value aspects, but grade 2 and up definitely would be. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this great book!

If you've read any of my other book reviews, you'll already know that I start 'em all off by saying that each book starts off with the full 5 stars and that I'm always hopeful that they will still be stuck firmly in place when I close the back cover.

I'm intrigued to read this book 'cos maths has never been my strong point, so I'm hoping that this book will explain things clearly and that the knowledge will stay firmly lodged in my noggin' for future reference. It's aimed at 5-9 year olds, so it should be pretty simple maths for a middle-ager, right? It's only 29 pages long too, so hopefully I'll be able to put the sums to good use this afternoon after our groceries have been delivered.

Let's get started.

The first few pages are incredibly confusing 'cos they are all just a jumble of letters... I don't think they are even a proper language, just random letters with spaces... I'm hoping they are just a woopsie by the publisher 'cos I'm 64% of the way through and haven't read a single word of the story yet!

Such a young age group would barely know that those numbers ("Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty") existed as words and they certainly wouldn't be able to read them, so that's the first star coming off, unfortunately.

More text as opposed to numbers so a five year old would have given up, picked their nose in frustration and never walked off... even a 9 year old might struggle with seeing "lining up twenty-nine" and "lining up eighteen more" and they certainly wouldn't be able to do the maths, so that's another star coming off, unfortunately.

Ah-ha! Now we're at the maths, but the tens are being added up first which isn't how UK children are taught, so the 8 and 9 year olds would be frustrated and confused so would maybe storm off in a huff at this point. It might be how it's taught in America, but it's really not a good book for UK children unfortunately.

At 91% of the way through, there's a major problem with the illustration 'cos it shows 47+3=40 then +10=50 when it should be *37* instead of 47 - big woops to make there! Definitely a third star coming off very rapidly!

It's good that the author has explained their maths right at the end, but this book will hinder rather than help young children with their maths, unfortunately. It may be suitable for youngsters in other countries, just not the UK unfortunately.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Jolieology, LLC for the ARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. This is a childrens book. I liked the book, but was a bit confused if Rix and Mate were animals or toys. I did like the math aspect. Very different and cute. 4 stars

Simple picture book about two bored toys in a shop who go on an adventure to build a fort. They find a board filled with holes and a bunch of pennies underneath. They decide to count the pennies by filling in the holes. A simple introduction to addition for those just learning to count. Unfortunately it uses the confusing common core method instead of the simpler one we all learned as kids.

Mate and Rix Escape Boredom features some really fun characters trying to find a place to be cozy. It turns into an adventure of adding up pennies using the partial-sums addition method. This a great for a child learning how to add!! Fun illustrations