Book Rec of the Day 3/7/2007

FOR READERS OF ALL AGES

You can count on books about math, but you can’t count on them becoming international bestsellers. Enter The Number Devil, which charmed audiences everywhere into caring about numbers. It’s the story of Robert, a 12-year-old who doesn’t give a devil about math. Until the number devil himself starts visiting Robert in his sleep and introducing him in his own fanciful way to math concepts from prime numbers to exponents. “Rare and glorious,” says the Baltimore Sun.

THE NUMBER DEVIL, by Hans Magnus Enzensberger; translated by Michael Henry Heim (1997; Owl Books, 2000)