Product Description

Bored and dissatisfied with his life, a triangle visits a local shapeshifter to add another angle to his shape. Poof! He becomes a quadrilateral. But then he gets greedy and keeps adding angles until he's completely transformed. Kids will enjoy this boldly colorful introduction to shapes and basic math concepts.

Now available in Scholastic Bookshelf editions, the Brainy Day Books have been developed by nationally acclaimed math educator and best-selling author Marilyn Burns. Using entertaining fictional stories, these books dispel the myth that math is dry, inaccessible, and unimaginative. At the end of each book, there's a special section that further outlines math concepts and provides questions to further engage children.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2274 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The author of The I Hate Mathematics Book celebrates geometric shapes in this informative but visually cluttered addition to the Marilyn Burns Brainy Day series. Her main character, a triangle with gleaming black eyes and a perky grin, leads a full life-it can take the shape of a slice of pie or rest in an elbow's angle "when people put their hands on hips." Yet the triangle aspires to greater complexity, so it asks a "shapeshifter" to turn it into a quadrilateral (the shape of a TV or a book's page), then into a pentagon (a house's facade) and so forth. Burns fails to show that the triangle is "greedy"; it's just adventurous. But her story successfully introduces basic polygons, and her afterword to adults suggests ways of teaching children some of the finer points about geometry (e.g., the concept of a plane or rhomboids). For his picture book debut, Silveria chooses tart shades of yellow, orange, lavender and green. His airbrushed colored-pencil compositions have suitably angular details; speckled paint and multicolored doodles soften the effect but create a sense of disorder. If the art as a whole is somewhat jumbled, readers still come away from this volume noticing and naming the shapes of the objects around them. Ages 6-9.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 1?An offbeat introduction to geometry. When a triangle tires of having only three sides, he asks the shapeshifter to change him first into a quadrilateral, then a pentagon, a hexagon, and so forth until he realizes he is happiest as a triangle: he can hold up a roof, be a slice of a pie and, best of all, slip into place when people put their hands on their hips. "That way I always hear the latest news...which I can tell my friends." The text is clever and shows more than the usual places to find shapes?part of a computer screen, a section of a soccer ball, a floor tile. The acrylic and colored-pencil illustrations are colorful, abstract, and filled with smiling shapes done in shades of turquoise, pink, and yellow. A two-page spread of suggestions for adults to reinforce the math lessons featured is included at the end of the book.?Christine A. Moesch, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, NY
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Ages 5-8. The basic plot is as tired as they come: a little Whatever wants to be Something Else, but finally decides that being a Whatever is best after all. In this case, Burns give the story a geometric twist: a little triangle who's tired of being a triangle goes to "the shape-shifter," who adds one more side and one more angle, making the little fellow a quadrilateral. It soon grows tired of being a quadrilateral, though, and returns to the shape-shifter to gain another side and angle, and another, and another, until the poor little polygon is almost circular. Eye-zapping graphics, airbrushed acrylics with colored pencil, give the crowded pages some pizzazz. Burns' appended notes for adults discuss the terminology and concepts and suggest activities to increase children's understanding of geometry. Useful, perhaps, as a supplement to the math curriculum. For another Marilyn Burns Brainy Day Book, see Friedman on p.1004. Carolyn Phelan

Customer Reviews

Good first book for children learning about shapes
This is a very cute book about shapes and is perfect as an introduction for children who have moved beyond basic circles, squares, and ovals. It introduces children to the triangle and works its way up to a decadron (although it defines a dodecadron at the back of the book when the story is over). I liked how it showed children where different shapes can be found in everyday life, and how a shape morphs just from adding one more side to an already existing shape. The story is cute, and it is a much nicer way for children to learn about shapes than most of the standard books that just show a drawing of something and then show a word to describe the object.

Cute and educational!
What an adorable book! This is a great way to teach geometry, and the colors are amazing. I as a teacher appreciate the obvious math connections, but on the deeper level you can make this a story of being true to yourself and recognizing your own greatness (truly, the triangle is indeed one of the strongest shapes despite having a mere three sides). The shapes come to life, especially the title Triangle, and the reader becomes both annoyed and supportive of him as he goes through his bizarre and clever journey through the world of geometry. Adorable story and gorgeous illustrations.

Love it!
It is a great way to learn about shapes for kids! With a little moral to the story! :)