Math, Gumbo, And More! – Riot New Media

Bookish Goods

$a photo of a coffee mug with an illustration of a cat wearing glasses and reading a book, with math equations behind them. The text reads: energy = milk x coffee 2$

Math Cat Coffee Mug by Creatle

I like to find Etsy items that match each newsletter’s theme, but I was dubious that I’d be able to find a bookish math one. I was wrong! This adorable mug combines books, math, and cats. An excellent combination. It comes as a sticker, too. $22

New Releases

Seoul Food by Erin Danielle Russell, illustrated by Tamisha Anthony

Hana loves both sides of her family — her grandparents from South Carolina and her grandparents from South Korea — but she wishes both sides would visit and connect with one another more. When her mother announces both sets of grandparents are visiting, Hana decides she needs to make food they’ll all love. But how can she combine South Carolina’s soul food with South Korean recipes? Seoul food, of course, with kimchi gumbo. This is such a delightful picture book about food and family centering a bicultural and biracial family. A recipe for kimchi gumbo is included at the end.

Finding Normal by Stephanie Faris

When 12-year-old Temple’s home is ruined in a flood, she and her family move in with neighbors and pull Temple from her private school to public to save money for a new home. But starting a new school in the middle of the year is tough, and Temple struggles to make friends. To help raise money for her family and the other families who lost their homes in the flood, Temple decides to host a fundraiser, but the pressure of planning a major fundraiser while keeping her grades up and dealing with friend drama is a lot. I really enjoyed this realistic middle grade novel. Flooding is one of my biggest fears. I’ve experienced several floods here in Nashville, and though my home has never been affected, I’ve seen how devasting they can be and know people who have lost loved ones in floods. Faris writes from her experience of having her home damaged in one of those floods.

For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.

Riot Recommendations

I’ve never considered myself a math person, but I’ve actually been really enjoying working on math games and activities with my daughter. Math seems more fun now? Like, she gets to make up her own math word problems and draw pictures to illustrate the math in school. Lots of her math word problems involve cats. Her teacher also calls equations number sentences. It’s kind of neat! Because she enjoys math so much, I’ve been seeking out math children’s books. Here are some great ones for every age!

Circle Under Berry by Carter Higgins

This is a fantastic early concepts book for preschoolers and toddlers. The pages are made of sturdy paper that’s not really board book material but not like a picture book either. They’re hard to tear! Each page shows geometric shapes in different positions, color combinations, and patterns. It’s a very cool book for kids to start learning colors, patterns, prepositions, and placement. Carter has another similar book — Some of These Are Snails.

Yumbo Gumbo by Keila V. Dawson, illustrated by Katie Crumpton

I adore the Storytelling Math series, which includes both picture books and board books. In the most recent picture book, Annabelle’s grandparents are coming to visit, and her grandmother is going to teach Annabelle how to cook gumbo. There’s only one problem — some of the family want okra gumbo, while others want chicken gumbo. How will Annabelle decide which to make and what ingredients to choose to make everyone happy? Cooking is such a great math activity for kids, and this is the perfect book to read before making a pot of gumbo!

The Great Mathemachicken: Hide and Go Beak by Nancy Krulik, illustrated by Charlie Alder

This is a hilarious, highly illustrated chapter book series about Chirpy the Chicken and her ability to solve problems with math. Whenever the coop is having a problem, Chirpy can figure out a way (literally) to solve it. She learns more about math by sneaking onto a school bus and attending school. In this first book, she tries to figure out how to prevent a fox from getting into the coop. In the second, The Great Mathemachicken: Have a Slice Day, Chirpy makes a duck friend, and the two learn about fractions. The third, The Great Mathemachicken: Sing High, Sing Crow, which releases in April, has Chirpy trying to figure out how to solve a rivalry between the coop and a noisy murder of crows.

The Solvers Book #1: The Divmulti Ray Dilemma by Jon Chad

I’m so excited about this new middle grade graphic novel series about superheroes and their math powers! Three tweens in Computropolis discover an arithmetic meteor and become superheroes with math powers called the solvers. Leo becomes Animal Jr., Shahi becomes Cloud Tamer, and Moe becomes Zipper. To defeat villains, they must solve math problems and need the reader’s help to do so. There are areas where the math is explained, and readers are encouraged to find some scrap paper to complete the problems. The second book in the series releases today, along with the first — The Solvers Book #2: The Shrinking Setback.

a photo of a worksheet with an illustration of cals under the text "With my [finger icon] I feel..."

I couldn’t immediately find a cat word problem, but I did find this delightful drawing my daughter made to illustrate “Feel.” I can tell she spent some time on it! It shows three cats gathered around an egg with a mama bird flying above worriedly. Don’t worry, she said the cats are helping the bird with the egg that tumbled from the nest. I’m not entirely sure how this illustrates “Feel” in terms of the five senses, but I’m here for it regardless. Okay, my daughter read this before I submitted it and says it illustrates the word “Feel” because you feel cats. 🙂

If you’d like to read more of my kidlit reviews, I’m on Instagram @BabyLibrarians, Twitter @AReaderlyMom, Bluesky @AReaderlyMom.bsky.social, and blog irregularly at Baby Librarians. You can also read my Book Riot posts. If you’d like to drop me a line, my email is kingsbury.margaret@gmail.com.

All the best,

Margaret Kingsbury