Math Reading Challenge discussion

I'm really curious to see what people recommend for this one. I don't have kids or interact with kids all that much, so I'm sure there's a lot out there that I never see. I read The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos a few years ago and thought it was pretty good. I haven't read Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA, but I think it would be a good YA introduction to the history in Hidden Figures.
Share your recommendations here!

Counting Picture Books
Sprout, Seed, Sprout! by Annika Dunklee is a counting book that never goes higher than 3. It uses number words, but no numerals. I like the contrast between 1-2-3 (which we think of as happening quickly) and all the waiting in the book. Lots of good examples of 1-2-3 with object correspondence and another example where we see the passage of time (1 year and the picture after 1 year, 2 years and the picture after 2 years, etc.).

How Many? A Counting Book by Christopher Danielson is a fun counting book that doesn't provide the count for you. Different people will count different things and that's okay. This is all about #unitchat.

Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang is a bedtime counting book that goes backwards from 10 to 1.

How to Two by David Soman is a counting book that's about inviting others to play (counting up) and then people going home (counting down). Number words one to ten with kids and animals to count on each page (and diverse kids and families).

Baby Goes to Market by Angela Brooksbank Atiunuke is a subtract 1 story. Baby gets 6 bananas and eats 1, putting away 5. Baby gets 5 oranges and eats 1, putting away 4. This continues through the market.

Stack the Cats by Susie Ghahremani is a cute counting book that also includes some breakdown of the numbers into smaller numbers.

Math Fables by Greg Tang counts from 1 to 10 and shows all the different ways to divide that number into 2 groups.

Lifetime: The Amazing Numbers in Animal Lives by Lola M. Schaefer is a counting book that focuses on larger numbers and estimation (although the estimation is all in the back matter). The numbers are 1, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 200, 550, 900, and 1000.

Math Appeal: Mind-Stretching Math Riddles by Greg Tang is fully of snappy rhymes and fun pictures that challenge readers to think of different ways to count items in the picture.

Math Fables Too: Making Science Count by Greg Tang has the same sort of adding-to-ten problems that are in Math Fables: Lessons That Count but with true stories about animals.

Big Fat Hen by Keith Baker takes the rhyme (one, two, buckle my shoe) and illustrates it well, with items on the page to count.

Anno's Counting Book shows the numbers from 0 to 12. It gives us the numeral, a stack of cubes equal to the number, and then an illustration where you find all the instances of the number on that page. Things are roughly seasonal, so you're stepping through 12 months of the year.

Picture Book Biographies
A Computer Called Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Helped Put America on the Moon by Suzanne Slade is a biography of Katherine Johnson. When the book wants to say that something is wrong, it uses a math "equation" that isn't equal. Example: "As wrong as 10-5=3".

Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13 by Helaine Becker is another biography of Katherine Johnson with a special focus on her contributions to the space program and how math was important to orbiting the earth and sending people to the moon and back.

Nothing Stopped Sophie: The Story of Unshakable Mathematician Sophie Germain by Cheryl Bardoe. Amazing illustrations about a girl who had to persevere in her studies despite parents and schools who thought women couldn't (or shouldn't) do this. She had to hide the fact that she was female to be taken seriously.

Other Picture Books
A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars by Seth Fishman is about big numbers, estimation, equivalences, and counting.

3x4 by Ivan Brunetti tells the story of a classroom of students who have an assignment to draw 12, but in sets (4 sets of 3, 3 sets of 4, 2 sets of 6, etc.). They each have a unique perspective on the assignment, although some have an easier time coming up with an idea than others.

26 Letters and 99 Cents by Tana Hoban is a book that is read from 2 directions. In one direction, you see uppercase letter, lowercase letter, and an object that starts with that letter. In the other direction, you see a number and then (US) coins to make that number of cents. In several cases, the number is shown different ways (so 25 is 5 nickels or 2 dimes and 1 nickel or 1 quarter). It shows 1-30, then 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80, 99, and 99. There are no words in the book at all.

Mother Goose: Numbers on the Loose by Leon Dillon is a book of traditional mother goose rhymes with a focus on those that include numbers. The illustrations are spot-on and always get the math/counting right.

Minnie's Diner: A Multiplying Menu by Dayle Ann Dodds is a cute story about a farming family where each person stops doing chores to go to Minnie's to eat. The first person orders the daily special. Each person thereafter orders twice what the prior person ordered. Nice powers of 2.

Zero is the Leaves on the Tree by Betsy Franco is a picture book showing different ways to illustrate zero or see zero in daily life.

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman is an introduction to spirals for younger ones.

Round by Joyce Sidman explores things that are round -- both circles and spheres, and includes some things that might not be completely round (tree rings, eggs, stones where the tops are worn to "round", mushroom caps). Would be fun to read in a group and discuss whether each thing is round.

Betcha! Estimating by Stuart J. Murphy is a good book on estimating, although all estimates but one are of things that could be pretty easily counted. Shows how people did the estimation.

Seeing Symmetry by Loreen Leedy explains line and rotational symmetry and many instances where it occurs in nature and in human-made things.

Lemonade in Winter: A Book About Two Kids Counting Money by Emily Jenkins is a story about 2 siblings who have a lemon-limeade stand in winter. They spend money on supplies and then earn money when they sell.

Math Curse by Jon Scieszka is a story about a kid who wakes up one morning to find that EVERYTHING is a math problem.

Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong is a story about a magic pot that doubles everything put in it, even people!

More Than One by Miriamm Schlein is a simple book showing why units matter. One = 1, except when it's one pair or one dozen or one flock....

Infinity and Me by Kate Hosford explores infinity on a simple level by looking at a variety of things people tell her about infinity.

You Can Count on Monsters by Richard Evan Schwartz is a picture book, but not. It's 244 pages, so definitely not in the normal picture book category. It uses illustrations to show the prime factorization of each number to 100.

G Is for Googol: A Math Alphabet Book is a thicker than normal book for a picture book. There are 1-4 pages of text and pictures for each letter of the alphabet. It seems like they're trying to keep the terms limited to arithmetic/pre-algebra/elementary school geometry.

A Remainder of One by Elinor J. Pinczes is about divisibility.

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara models some estimation and problem solving, as well as counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s.

Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar by Masaichiro Anno starts with a jar full of water. In the water is an island, ont he island are 2 kingdoms, in each kingdom are 3 mountains, and so it continues. Factorials!

How Much is a Million? by David M. Schwartz explores a million to try to give children a sense of the number.

Count on Me by Miguel Tanco is a book about a girl who has a passion for math. I like how it shows the love of math as something besides JUST working problems.

One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale by Demi contains gorgeous Indian illustrations of a folk tale. The raja takes a tax from the villagers to save it for a time of famine. Then, doesn't help the people in the famine. A village girl who earns a reward asks for 1 grain the first day and for the amount she gets to double each day for 30 days.

The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns is a story about a triangle who is unhappy and asked for another side and then another and another. Names for polygons up through decagon.

Measuring Penny by Loreen Leedy is a cute story about measuring using standard and made-up measurements.

Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert has more text than many math picture books. Best to be "acted out" as it is told with a set of tangrams.

One Hundred Hungry Ants by Elinor J. Pinczes is about divisibility. 100 ants are marching to a picnic. They start in single file, then a double line, then 4 rows, then 5 rows, then end up in a 10x10 block.

Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh starts with a snake who goes hunting sleepy mice. he adds 3 mice to a jar, then 4 mice, and then 3 mice. While he's gone, the mice tip the jar over and it empties out 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Spaghetti and Meatballs for All! by Marilyn Burns is about area and perimeter. People have been invited and the tables are all set, but the guests insist on rearranging the tables.

My favorite math-related middle grade books are both fiction. Hans Magnus Enzensberger's The Number Devil talks about a lot of math through a series of dreams. Blue Balliett's Chasing Vermeer is an art-related mystery, but one of the three main kids carries around pentominoes, and they're pretty important to the story.

Two good resources for finding mathematical kidlit are Kelly Darke's blog Math Book Magic and the Mathical Book Prize.

Here are some picture book options that I know of coming out in 2020:

Numbers in Motion: Sophie Kowalevski, Queen of Mathematics by Laurie Wallmark is a picture book biography of Kovalevskaya. Wallmark has written some other really excellent PB biographies. Scheduled to release March 3.

Seven Golden Rings: A Tale of Music and Math by Rajani LaRocca is a picture book about a puzzle using binary. Scheduled to release July 14.

The Blunders: A Counting Catastrophe! by Christina Soontornvat is a bilingual counting and skip-counting picture book. Scheduled to release Feb. 11.

Dozens of Donuts by Carrie Finison is a picture book with a story involving division. Scheduled to release July 21.