Book: Pythagorean Theorem for babies
Authors: Chris Ferrie and Mike Ziniti.
Overview: This book explains the basic concept of the Pythagorean Theorem with colorful illustrations.
Morals or lessons: shapes are cool, and some shapes follow rules – in particular, a squared plus b squared equals c squared.
Age range: This is pitched as a book for babies, but I don’t buy it. I just read this with my three year old, who is *very* into shapes at the moment, and she’s riveted. We’ve read it six times today. The end gets a bit complicated, even for a toddler (see below), so I think toddlers and preschoolers are a good range for this book.
Format: board book.
Visual/reading ease: medium.
The bright images are helpful, simple, and engaging. But the wording gets a bit complex toward the end, so this isn’t an easy read for new readers.
Biggest pro: the fun approach.
I have to admit, I was really geeking out a bit when I saw this on our local library shelf. My fellow geeks will appreciate the childlike awe and wonder woven into this little book.
Biggest con: the shift in difficulty over the course of the book.
The book starts off with really simple concepts and wording (“This is a ball. It has no corners and no sides.”) but ends with distinctly more difficult concepts and wording, as pictured here:
“Swap the top two blue triangles with the bottom two yellow triangles. The size of the blue area has not changed.”
Okay, see what I’m getting at here? The expected age range of the reader increases noticeably over the course of the book, which is a bummer because it starts off so little-kid friendly.
Fun factor: high at first, slowly decreasing.
For little little ones, the depictions of shapes in the book are going to be wonderful the whole time. But, the increasing difficulty of the book makes it hard to stay interested. I will say, we really enjoy counting squares at my house, and that helped the fun factor a lot.
How much heart: lots of geeky heart.
This might be a book that’s more fun for the parents than for the kids, and those kinds of books are really important for parents to have. If you love geometry, this is going to be near and dear to your heart. And if you’re looking for a baby shower gift for a geeky parent, I recommend this.
Re-readability: moderate.
Your re-readability score for this really depends on how many times you want to count to 25 in a day. I’m up to twelve today, and it’s starting to wear on me a bit, but I am working on being a more patient person. All that said, the colorful shapes and their repetition throughout the book with different concepts highlighted make it fairly easy to read this book several times a day.
Have you read any of the “X for babies” books? Which one should I read next?
Abby the Sociologist Doula 