This book tells of the "secret life" of math. It tries to explain the backstories of some math legends and myths. A lot of things come from the Native Americans and the tools that they use. It was fascinating to find out some of the "secrets" and find out the origins of some math related things that I use everyday. This would be a great book to use in a 5th-8th grade classroom and see how students respond to these stories. ( )

Retelling: The author takes you on a hands-on journey through time and place to solve the mystery of how math developed so similarly in civilizations with very little contact, from quipus in the middle east to the rapid calculating machines called abacus in ancient China. The writing has a very conversational, playful style. Activities and problems are scattered throughout the book.

Thoughts and Feelings: This book made me eager to try calculating in different ways. I wonder how many methods from ancient civilizations I could use to represent the same problem. I wonder if some of these methods gave practitioners a better conceptual understanding of mathematical problems than our calculator-driven community has today. I wonder if using the method the Egyptians used would make you think about a number's relationship to 60 and if the Inca method would make you think about their relationship to 40 and 400.