Anno's Magic Seeds by: Anno Mitsumasa

It covers the concept of multiplication and exponential growth. This story is fabulous in guiding children through their math skills in a fun and adventurous way. The pictures are also well done incorporating the plants and magic seeds for children to visually count and follow along with. Interesting story with good illustration highly recommend to any middle school math class.

The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by: Hans Magnus Enzensberger

In this book, a boy who hates math, “encounters a sly, clever number devil who introduces him to the wonder of numbers.” I couldn’t put it down and believe and 6-8th grade student would love this book.

The Ultimate Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook by: David Borgenicht.

There are, as the title suggests, tons of worst-case scenarios, and solutions on how to best solve the problems. Many of them contain math. I’d like to use this as a way to make math connect to the real world, and believe this would catch the interest of middle school students.

Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail by: Danica McKellar.

This woman has written to help middle school girls, their parents, and educators get through middle school math successfully. This could be a game changer for somebody’s student.

Pythagoras and the Ratios by: Julie Ellis and Phyllis Hornung Peacock

This book looks at the relationship between math and music, how certain notes sound good together and some do not. 

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by: Kathryn Lasky and Kevin Hawkes

This is a biography about Eratosthenes, who wrote the first geography book and accurately measured the circumference of the Earth.

Math Talk by: Theoni Pappas

This is a book that presents math topics in the form of poetry. This could be a great way to introduce a new topic or review an old on.

A Very Improbable Story by: Edward Einhorn 

A young boy Ethan wakes up morning to with his cat stuck on his head. The cat, named Odds, won’t come off until Ethan wins a game of probability with it. As it says, this is a book of probability where you learn the basic of the subject.  Will Ethan beat the odds (and Odds)?

The King’s Chessboard by: David Birch

A servant of a king from old India gets to choose a reward for his long tenure of service.  Despite not wanting a reward, the king still insists and demands he takes one.  The servant then sees a chessboard and asks for a grain of rice put on the chessboard, and then doubled each day for all the chessboard squares. 

The Hershey’s Fractions Book by: Jerry Pallotta

This book explores fractions by using a Hershey chocolate bar as an example.  It discusses how it is divided up into twelfths, and goes into math terminology such as numerator, denominator, and improper fraction.

The Geometry of Art and Life by: Matila Ghyka

Combination math history and theory. Some sections can become difficult to get through, but showing students mathematical patterns and relationships in living things sparks interest.

Math and the Mona Lisa by: Bulent Atalay

Da Vinci was an incredible artist, mathematician, and scientist, to name a few of his passions. The book looks at some of the math hidden in his greatest works.

The Outliers: The Story of Success by: Malcolm Gladwell

A must read to say the least!  In this book, you will find ways of how people (popular and not) come across challenges and ways to work through obstacles. 

First couple of chapters lend themselves to data analysis lessons. Those chapters include the discussion of 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, as well as an analysis of the birth months of professional sports prospects.

Math Curse by: Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

This is a story that I was literally read to in junior high and even once in my High School career.  All this story does is provide the feedback to students how Math does relate in so many different areas of life.  Something that is more than useful starting off a year/term.  This might be for an earlier learning level, however, we can definitely grasp different views from it as students.

One Grain Of Rice by: Demi *

One Grain Of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale by: Demi (music) *

One Grain Of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale by: Demi (Text)*

One Grain Of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale by: Demi (Short Story )*

The drawings are beautiful, colorful and guides the reader, one step at a time, to the meaning of exponential growth. Great for kids.

The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat by: Theoni Pappas

This is a book that I was told to read in an earlier class at NLU which I still haven’t had the time to do so.  Within this story, Penrose gives a simplifying explanation of different math topics (whole numbers, prime numbers, fractions, etc) and can provide the class with a bit more information other than the standard definition of what a term means.  I feel that learning in this way will assist the students to not only figure out how to solve a related equation, but to store the information for future use.

Midnight Math: Twelve Terrific Math Games by: Peter Ledwon

This book can be great for students to use. It consists of fun math games that challenge students to use basic arithmetic while playing with their friends/classmates.

Fractions in Disguise by: Edward Einhorn.

This is a story about a guy who is crazy for fractions.  There is a series of “fractions in disguise” and the main character is specifically looking for 5/9. 

Measuring Penny by: Loreen Leedy

This story is about a girl who measures several items but uses items to measure and not necessarily a standard unit of measure.  It could be good for comparative ideas when measuring or comparing fractions

Mathematics Lessons Learned from Around the World by: Johnny Lott

This book combines math and cultural learning.  I have not seen this book in person but have read an excerpt and looked at the table of contents (which indicates that the whole book consists of lessons! 18 to be exact). It stresses that math is a universal language that links the whole world.

Natural Wonders of the World: Kerri O'Donnell

This book combines math and natural wonder example grand canyon, Mt. Everest, Volcano, Meteor etc. It  is a small picture book with colorful pictures and  small math problems.  A good book to convert distance measurements to metric units.  This book connect math with their natural environment and make math more interesting and more meaningful.

The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by: Hans Magnus Enzensberger

I think this is a good choice to read aloud to a group of middle school students. There are so many math problems that the character comes across during the story. You could stop and attempt to solve/explain the problems from the book as a whole class.

Sticks by: Joan Bauer *

I loved this chapter book and highly recommend for 5th to 7th grade classes. It is a realistic-nonfiction book. This book takes place in a modern day pool hall. The main character is Mickey Vernon, who is in middle school. Mickey has a friend who is math whiz kid and helps Mickey with some of his pool shots through math tricks. I loved reading this book as it teaches determination and has a good use of science and math vocabulary with an interesting story.

Sir Cumference Series by: Cindy Neuschwander *

There are 6 books in the series: Sir Cumference and the First Round Table, Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi, Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland, Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone, Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter, and Sir Cumference and All the Kings Tens.

Most of the characters of the book are named after math terms, such as Sir Cumference (circumference), Di of Ameter (diameter). A fun to read Collection.