This delightful children's book is an ingenious way of teaching young people about the wonders of mathematics. In this imaginative tale, a young boy named Robert falls asleep and in his dream meets an impish, elderly man who calls himself the Number Devil. Over a series of nights (and dreams), the Number Devil teaches Robert such concepts as prime numbers, infinity, the Fibonacci numbers, pi, imaginary numbers and square roots. Along the way, Robert is introduced to such famous mathematicians as Bertrand Russell, Georg Cantor, Friedrich Gauss and Pythagoras.
Reading this book reminded me of Sophie's World, the wonderful novel by Jostein Gaarder that provides an excellent summary of the history of western philosophy. Like Gaarder (who is able to convey a wide array of ideas with a brilliant tale), Hans Magnus Enzensberger finds a way to explain a wide range of mathematical ideas to his young audience, while simultaneously entertaining them. This is a great book for any parent who wants to teach their young children math.
4 out of 5 stars
