Product Description

From a well-known actress and math genius—a groundbreaking guide to mathematics for middle school girls, their parents, and educators

As the math education crisis in this country continues to make headlines, research continues to prove that it is in middle school when math scores begin to drop—especially for girls—in large part due to the relentless social conditioning that tells girls they “can’t do” math, and that math is “uncool.” Young girls today need strong female role models to embrace the idea that it’s okay to be smart—in fact, it’s sexy to be smart!

It’s Danica McKellar’s mission to be this role model, and demonstrate on a large scale that math doesn’t suck. In this fun and accessible guide, McKellar—dubbed a “math superstar” by The New York Times—gives girls and their parents the tools they need to master the math concepts that confuse middle-schoolers most, including fractions, percentages, pre-algebra, and more. The book features hip, real-world examples, step-by-step instruction, and engaging stories of Danica’s own childhood struggles in math (and stardom). In addition, borrowing from the style of today’s teen magazines, it even includes a Math Horoscope section, Math Personality Quizzes, and Real-Life Testimonials—ultimately revealing why math is easier and cooler than readers think.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33730 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
“McKellar is probably the only person on prime-time television who moonlights as a cyberspace math tutor.”
—The New York Times

“[When] girls tell [Danica] that they’re studying math because of her, she says, ‘I feel I’m helping them find a talent they didn’t know they had.’”
—People

About the Author
Best known for her roles on The Wonder Years and The West Wing, Danica McKellar graduated summa cum laude in mathematics from UCLA, went on to co-write a published math theorem, and continues to be an outspoken role model for young women to excel in math.

Customer Reviews

Math can be fun!!! (Never thought I'd say that!)
I bought this book for my daughter who was struggling with math. I loved Danica on Wonder Years, so I figured it would at least be entertaining. My daughter loves this book, and also the fun quizzes, and the neat tricks she has for remembering functions.

A Good Tool to help your daughter understand math.
We all knew by watching the Wonder Years that Winnie Cooper was smart. We didn't realize that Actress Danica McKeller who portrayed Winnie on TV is even smarter than that iconic Girl next Door Character.

McKeller has written a book for Jr. High girls that introduces them and reintroduces their parents to basic concepts in math like factors, prime numbers, quotients, and others that tended to make my head swim in school. She does this by using illustrations that the girls can relate to like boys (What factors do the guy that dumped you and the guy you currently like have in common), Fashion (you have 18 lipstick samples you need to divide into gift bags, how many combinations can you make?), Food (Using pizza slices to illustrate fractions) and many many other clever examples.

Everything is written in clear easy to understand language and should be easy for most Middle School Children to grasp. Even boys if they aren't too turned off by some of the more girly examples will get some good math knowledge from the text. I myself find the book helps me overcome my aversion to Math a bit and maybe I'll start trying to balance my checkbook without Quicken.

Elementary schooler can't put it down
I bought this book in "anticipation" of math troubles for my now 8-year-old. I explained to her that we'll read it together as she gets closer to middle school, but she finds it so interesting now, she's reading it as if it were prose. I suspect she's simply intrigued with Danica and all things adolescent (since most little girls idolize teen girls), but whatever it is, she's enjoying reading this book. Hopefully, we're paving the road to a good relationship with math in the near future.