Math with the laughs added in – and the boredom taken away. From freaky fractions to cunning codes, you’re in for more laughs than you can count. Beware, brave reader. In Murderous Maths, you won’t find any boring exercises or flummoxing sums. Instead, Professor Fiendish and his rotten sidekick, Chainsaw Charlie, unleash their murderous take on maths. Foul formulas. Agonising algebra. Terrible take-aways. We dare you to try it. Essential curriculum math as you’ve never seen it before Funny approach similar to the Horrible Histories series Now there’s no excuse to be afraid of learning numbers Bestselling series with great cartoons by Philip Reeveon Titles in This Set: The Phantom X Desperate Measures The Perfect Sausage and Other Fundamental Formulas Guaranteed to Bend your Brain Do you Feel Lucky? Awesome Arithmetricks Savage Shapes Guaranteed to Mash your Mind The Key to the Universe Easy Questions, Evil Answers
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Review:
My boys LOVE this set. Because it's published in the UK, some of the terms are different than what we use in the US, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The books are so relatable and funny to my 8 and 10 year old that they have spent the whole summer writing and solving equations in their free time. I would not call this curriculum, and it doesn't claim to be, but that's part of its charm. My kids are reading (and re-reading) these and doing math for its own sake. Concepts are cleverly explained and cover many ideas that help prime elementary students for math learning in future grades. My boys now know and love prime numbers, factorials, and how to calculate to the power of, for example. There's still room for my 10yo to grow with these books!
Caveats: some may find the humor occasionally offensive. I find it creative and feel like that's exactly why my boys love it so much. There are a few other series also published by scholastic that I often see recommended alongside these books (Horrible Histories, Horrible Geography, Horrible Science). Because history is a more religiously polarized subject, I recommend care with reading these books with your young kids.
I gotta say, there's something special about having your kids run up to you showing off math puzzles like this:
I gotta say, there's something special about having your kids run up to you showing off math puzzles like this:
Buy Murderous Maths here!
