Martha the Mathemagician and the Secret Code

A maths story set on Calculation Island

Martha the Mathemagician lives on Calculation Island, where numbers grow on trees. She shares it with her lifelong best friend Oscar the Owl and her grandfather Max, an old and wise mathemagician.

In this first book of the series, Martha is given her magic calculator. She has to discover the secret code that will unlock its powers, and the search becomes an adventure through numbers.

The characters who bring maths to life

Martha and Oscar meet four characters in their search for the answer, and each one stands for an idea about numbers:

• the Halving Ladybird: halving, an early step towards fractions
• the Number Eating Crocodile: comparing numbers
• the Doubling Butterfly: doubling, and the patterns it makes
• the Making Five Starfish: number bonds, which lead on to addition and subtraction

In practice, a named character makes a mathematical concept easier to remember than a bare sum. Children can then try out the idea with their fingers or a handful of counters, just as they practise counting.

These are the number skills met in Key Stage 1 maths, from counting on to number bonds within five. The story stays with number throughout: shape and geometry are not part of this first adventure, so look elsewhere for work on shape.

Reading maths together, at home or in the classroom

The book is beautifully and amusingly illustrated, with jokes for adults and charm for children. The story is designed for a parent or teacher to read with children, so the illustrations and the storytelling both work well when read aloud.

Sharing the book is a positive experience that helps put mathematics anxiety to bed and opens eyes to the wonderful world of mathematics. For parents, it is an engaging way into maths learning without a worksheet or a problem to solve.

The book will also serve young readers well as they explore the world, especially as so few picture books and stories have maths at their heart. In the classroom, this works well when the tale leads into a short counting game, much like the Year 1 maths games children already play.

Martha the Mathemagician will charm children and adults alike. This storybook makes the world of numbers a comfortable and exciting place to be. Read one chapter, then ask your child to double a number the way the Butterfly does.

Not sure? You can get a free sample emailed to you using the link below.