The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos

This is a good book but a strange one.

It definitely promotes an interest in math. My three-year-old asked in the first reading what negative numbers were. I told her they were numbers that were less than zero. She then asked what numbers were less than negative numbers. She also asked what prime numbers were and why they were special (I didn't have a very good pre-K answer for that one). You don't get that sort of conversation with other children's books.

On the other hand, Paul Erdos himself was a pretty strange fellow, and the plot of his life doesn't make for obviously engaging children's reading. The part my three-year-old connected with the most was the part where Paul doesn't want to go to school because he doesn't want to be away from his mama, and he doesn't like rules. And the workaround that his mother comes up with is to homeschool him (lesson: if you hate rules and love your mama, she'll stay home with you all the time). That's not necessarily the sort of lesson you want your kid learning. My daughter also didn't connect with "Uncle Paul" as he grew up into a strange old man who couldn't even eat dinner without help from others. Having said that, she definitely likes the book and has asked for repeated readings (although she sometimes asks me to skip the parts where he's an old man).

So, five stars for making a math-y book that is engaging for kids, and three stars for the sometimes strange life lessons of Paul Erdos, for an average of four stars.

My 6 year old's first question was about the word "improbable." The story is about being different, following one's passion and using that passion to build friendships and collaborations. The book opens up all kinds of questions about geography, math and the injustice of telling kids to sit still. I like the fact that the book assumes all children are intelligent people. Every time we re-read the story, there's something different to love about it.

I was lucky to get an advanced copy of this book and read it immediately to my 3 1/2 year old daughter (a little younger than the target demographic). There were certain concepts (about primes for instance) that she wasn't ready to grasp, but she loved the story of Erdos, and it genuinely got and kept her attention.

I'm from a mathematical discipline myself (physics, with an Erdos number of 5, as it turns out), but still learned a lot about Paul Erdos (and even more about his mathematics).

The illustrations are beautiful, and the storytelling is brisk. Strongly recommended for kids who are interested in math and science -- or who you _want_ to get interested in math and science.

I purchased this book for a read aloud to promote math identity in my 5th graders. Often, math is so abstract to students, and every year I have a large number of children who come into my class that are not comfortable with math. Typically, they hate it. This book helped my students to better understand the importance of math, and sticking with something to get better at it. We also discussed how math isn't about the number of problems you do, but rather the quality of our work and how it impacts other people.

Make a beeline for your local library's children's biography section and learn firsthand the shocking truth about picture book bios of mathematical geniuses. Apparently there was only one and his name was Einstein. End of story. The world as we know it is not overflowing with picture book encapsulations of the lives of Sir Isaac Newton or Archimedes (though admittedly you could probably drum up a Leonardo da Vinci book or two if you were keen to try). But when it comes to folks alive in the 20th century, Einstein is the beginning and the end of the story. You might be so foolish as to think there was a good reason for that fact. Maybe all the other mathematicians were dull. I mean, Einstein was a pretty interesting fella, what with his world-shattering theories and crazed mane. And true, the wild-haired physicist was fascinating in his own right, but if we're talking out-and-out interesting people, few can compare with the patron saint of contemporary mathematics, Paul Erdős. Prior to reading this book I would have doubted a person could conceivably make an engaging biography chock full to overflowing with mathematical concepts. Now I can only stare in amazement at a story that could conceivably make a kid wonder about how neat everything from Euler's map of Konigsburg to the Szekeres Snark is. This is one bio you do NOT want to miss. A stunner from start to finish.

For you see, there once was a boy who loved math. His name was Paul and he lived in Budapest, Hungary in 1913. As a child, Paul adored numbers, and theorems, and patterns, and tricky ideas like prime numbers. As he got older he grew to be the kind of guy who wanted to do math all the time! Paul was a great guy and a genius and folks loved having him over, but he was utterly incapable of taking care of himself. Fortunately, he didn't have to. Folks would take care of Paul and in exchange he would bring mathematicians together. The result of these meetings was great strides in number theory, combinatorics, the probabilistic method, set theory, and more! Until the end of this days (when he died in a math meeting) Paul loved what he did and he loved the people he worked with. "Numbers and people were his best friends. Paul Erdős had no problem with that."

There are two kinds of picture book biographies in this world. The first attempts to select just a single moment or personality quirk from a person's life, letting it stand in as an example of the whole. Good examples of this kind of book might include Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell about the childhood of Jane Goodall or Lincoln Tells a Joke How Laughter Saved the President And the Country by Kathleen Krull. It's hard to pinpoint the perfect way to convey any subject, but it can sometimes be even harder to tell an entire life in the span of a mere 40 pages or so. Still, that tends to be the second and more common kind of picture book biography out there. Generally speaking they don't tend to be terribly interesting. Just a series of rote facts, incapable of making it clear to a kind why a person mattered aside from the standard "because I said so" defense. The Boy Who Loved Math is different because it really takes the nature of biography seriously. If the purpose of a bio is to make it clear that a person was important, how important was a guy who loved math puzzles? Well, consider what the story can do. In a scant number of pages author Deborah Heiligman gives us an entire life synthesized down to just a couple key moments, giving the man's life form and function and purpose, all while remaining lighthearted and fun to read. Who does that?

Did you know that there are kids out there who like math? I mean, reeeeeeally like math? The kinds that beg their parents for math problems to solve? They exist (heck, Ms. Heiligman gave birth to one) and for those kids this book will come like a present from on high. Because not only does the author highlight a fellow who took his passion for numbers and turned it into a fulfilling and fun life, but thanks to illustrator LeUyen Pham the illustrations are overflowing with math equations and puzzles and problems, just waiting to be interpreted and dissected. I have followed the career of Ms. Pham for many years. There is no book that she touches that she does not improve with her unique style. Whether it's zeroing in on a child's neuroses in Alvin Ho or bringing lush life to a work of poetry as in A Stick Is an Excellent Thing, Pham's art can run the gamut from perfect interstitial pen-and-inks to lush watercolor paints. I say that, but I have never, but ever, seen anything like what she's done in The Boy Who Loved Math.

It would not be overstating the matter to call this book Pham's masterpiece. The common story behind its creation is that there was some difficulty finding the perfect artist for it because whosoever put pen to paper here would have to be comfortable on some level with incorporating math into the art. Many is the artist who would shy away from that demand. Not Ms. Pham. She takes to the medium like a duck to water, seemingly effortlessly weaving equations, charts, diagrams, numbers, and theorems into pictures that also have to complement the story, feature the faces of real people, capture a sense of time (often through clothing) and place (often through architecture), and hardest of all, be fun to look at.

But that's just for starters. The final product is MUCH more complex. I'm not entirely certain what the medium is at work here but if I had to guess I'd go with watercolors. Whatever it is, Pham's design on each page layout is extraordinary. Sometimes she'll do a full page, border to border, chock full of illustrations of a single moment. That might pair with a page of interstitial scenes, giving a feel to Paul's life. Or consider the page where you see a group of diners at a restaurant, their worlds carefully separated into dotted squares (a hat tip to one of Paul's puzzles) while Paul sits in his very own dotted pentagon. It's these little touches that make it clear that Paul isn't like other folks. All this culminates in Pham's remarkable Erdős number graph, where she outdoes herself showing how Paul intersected with the great mathematicians of the day. Absolutely stunning.

Both Heiligman and Pham take a great deal of care to tell this tale as honestly as possible. The extensive "Note From the Author" and "Note From the Illustrator" sections in the back are an eye-opening glimpse into what it takes to present a person honestly to a child audience. In Pham's notes she concedes when she had to illustrate without a guide at hand. For example, Paul's babysitter ("the dreaded Faulein") had to be conjured from scratch. She is the rare exception, however. Almost every face in this book is a real person, and it's remarkable to look and see Pham's page by page notes on who each one is.

Heiligman's author's note speaks less to what she included and more to what she had to leave out. She doesn't mention the fact that Paul was addicted to amphetamines and honestly that sort of detail wouldn't have served the story much at all. Similarly I had no problem with Paul's father's absence. Heiligman mentions in her note what the man went through and why his absences would make Paul's mother the "central person in his life emotionally". The book never denies his existence, it just focuses on Paul's mother as a guiding force that was perhaps in some way responsible for the man's more quirky qualities. The only part of the book that I would have changed wasn't what Heiligman left out but what she put in. At one point the story is in the midst of telling some of Paul's more peculiar acts as a guest (stabbing tomato juice cartons with knives, waking friends up at 4 a.m. to talk math, etc.). Then, out of the blue, we see a very brief mention of Paul getting caught by the police when he tried to look at a radio tower. That section is almost immediately forgotten when the text jumps back to Paul and his hosts, asking why they put up with his oddities. I can see why placing Paul in the midst of the Red Scare puts the tale into context, but I might argue that there's no real reason to include it. Though the Note for the Author at the end mentions that because of this act he wasn't allowed back in the States for a decade, it doesn't have a real bearing on the thrust of the book. As they say in the biz, it comes right out.

I have mentioned that this book is a boon for the math-lovers of the world, but what about the kids who couldn't care diddly over squat about mathy malarkey? Well, as far as I'm concerned the whole reason this book works is because it's fun. A little bit silly too, come to that. Even if a kid couldn't care less about prime numbers, there's interest to be had in watching someone else get excited about them. We don't read biographies of people exactly like ourselves all the time, because what would be the point of that? Part of the reason biographies even exist is to grant us glimpses into the lives of the folks we would otherwise never have the chance to meet. Your kid may never become a mathematician, but with the book they can at least hang out with one.

One problem teachers have when they teach math is that they cannot come up with a way to make it clear that for some people mathematics is a game. A wonderful game full of surprises and puzzles and queries. What The Boy Who Loved Math does so well is to not only show how much fun math can be on your own, it makes it clear that the contribution Paul Erdős gave to the world above and beyond his own genius was that he encouraged people to work together to solve their problems. Heiligman's biography isn't simply the rote facts about a man's life. It places that life in context, gives meaning to what he did, and makes it clear that above and beyond his eccentricities (which admittedly make for wonderful picture book bio fare) this was a guy who made the world a better place through mathematics. What's more, he lived his life exactly the way he wanted to. How many of us can say as much? So applause for Heiligman and Pham for not only presenting a little known life for all the world to see, but for giving that life such a magnificent package as this book. A must purchase.

For ages 5-9

My daughter (6 yrs old) likes numbers, so I was looking for something number related and after I read the book and she has asked for additional readings. The illustrations are interesting and engaging. We talk about positive and negative numbers using one of the illustrations. However, it does include some oddly difficult topics which distract from the main theme. Was it necessary to mention that he was arrested for trespassing and subsequently denied entry into the US for a decade? Granted it happened by accident due to his absent-mindedness, but now I have to explain what is arrested? why is he tresspassing? what is a spy? I tend to skip over that page--otherwise, "...yes dear, that's why you shouldn't jump over a fence into areas that have sensitive communications equipment, you can can be arrested." If the book was for older readers, then it may be worth including, but it detracts from the overall positive message in the book. The second odd item they mention was that his mom was afraid of him catching germs in school so she took him out of his early years in school, that was also to accomodate the fact that he was not keen on school early on--again I don't want to suggest to my daughter that she is in danger of getting sick at school or have to explain that Erdos Mom was probably needlessly paranoid.
My daughter seemed ok with the passages indicating he was socially awkward and different. I thought that was fine since it shows that people can be different and experience the world in different ways. It probably also makes him interesting to a young reader. Overall 5 Stars because it is a successful adaptation of a biography for young readers and manages to show how a person could love numbers from an early age. Skip over the awkward bits.

The subtitle of this book is "The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos"; it could as well be "an improbable topic for a picture book". So how does Deborah Heiligman manage to pull it off? This author of the awards-winning "Charles and Emma" has a unique talent for presenting biography, to all ages. She knows how to find a special "way in" to her subjects' lives, to find a story that hasn't been told before, and to give that story just the right structure and voice -- creating a story that children or young adults will actually want to hear.

Text and illustrations (delightful, by LeUyen Pham) are spotted with numbers. The book begins, "Paul Erdos lived in Budapest, Hugary, with his Mama. Mama loved Paul to infinity. Paul loved Mama to ∞ too!" And so we enter the mind of a person with a passion for numbers. We learn about Paul's life, we learn about numbers, and we learn about creative obsession, which for me is the biggest take-away from this book. THE BOY WHO LOVED MATH is about "the kind of person" who "didn't like to follow rules. So he invented his own way to live."

"So he invented his own way to live." I like that.

This book does an incredible job of capturing the quirkiness of Paul Erdös. The illustrations do justice to the poetic prose, and the end notes for parents and curious children are wonderful. I must admit that I'm a little biased (my Erdös number is 2), but this is one of the best biographies I've ever read.

The text is simple but delightful, and the story of a boy who doesn't like to sit still will surely sit well with restless children. The mathematics in the story is simple (prime numbers cannot be evenly divided) and well explained, with hints at deeper math drawn into the buildings (a diagramatic proof of R(3,3)=6), and detailed explanations provided at the end (yes, those are the harmonic primes!). This is an excellent book to spark a child's curiosity, no matter what her interests might be.

My five and seven year old boys really enjoyed this book. They hung on every word and were just interested learning about an accomplished person in an approachable way. They like that it is a true story and they both love math so they liked the numbers too. I disagree with people who said kids can't understand concepts like prime numbers etc. when reading it. My kids have a basic understanding of prime numbers and they liked talking about it when we got to that section and counting the prime numbers with me. The other concepts that even I don't know much about were just mentions and they could understand that they were math terms they hadn't learned yet but might be interesting to them in the future. They also found all the parts about him not being able to butter his bread to be amusing and relatable. We don't read it every day but it is a nice addition to our library! And it's nice to have a picture book that will be appropriate for them even when they're older.

I love every single thing about this book - that Heiligman thought Erdős was an important subject, how she portrayed Erdős as original and thoughtful but not an odd misfit, the descriptive and informative writing, the mathematical and biographical information it conveys in a fun way, the incredibly detailed illustrations by LeUyen Pham, and the extensive author's and illustrator's notes at the end. I read the text in a very short time, but this is a book that I'm going to keep by my reading chair so I can peruse the illustrations in detail and learn even more. I've read adult biographies about Erdős, and while they were interesting, they were often a collection of rote facts or snippets of his life. The Boy Who Loved Math manages to show Erdős as a real person who loved math and why his life, the way he lived it, his contributions, and math itself are all so important. I'm very proud of my older son's Erdős number of 4, and even more so after reading this book.