Faery Swap
By Susan Kaye Quinn
10 words: Finn must help farry destroy King's plans to invade world.
The story is a cute, fun tale about finding those lost, learning powers you didn't know you had, and saving two worlds. Its a safe, fun story that is somewhat predictable but I am also not really its intended audience so it might be less predictable to them...
Overall, I liked it. It was fun and simple but not in a bad way. The thing that I don't get about it is the idea - and almost obsession - that the magic in the book has something to do with Math, and knowledge that the humans have and the faeries don't. It feels like the book was written, and then someone said it was flat/normal. They didn't think it would have any real drive and so they added the idea that it could teach math some how (I haven't figured out really how) in order to give a way to disingenuous it from any other, simple fiction story.
I understand the idea behind making math fun. I like books that make math fun a LOT (if you want this kind of book see Math for Smarty Pants its AMAZING), as a kind I obsessed over them. That was why I wanted to review this book.Aside from saying over and over again how math was important it was never really applied in any way, AND there was still a second, more prominent explanation for the magic. That it came from nature/"elements" (not real elements, but the fire/water/air/earth kind... if something like Chlorine or Nitrogen had been used as the source of magic that would have made me SO happy!). This explanation was much more explained, and prominent part of the story than the Math knowledge part which is stressed so much in the ads / on the authors website. So I don't exactly understand what they were getting at.
The story is a cute, fun tale about finding those lost, learning powers you didn't know you had, and saving two worlds. Its a safe, fun story that is somewhat predictable but I am also not really its intended audience so it might be less predictable to them...
Overall, I liked it. It was fun and simple but not in a bad way. The thing that I don't get about it is the idea - and almost obsession - that the magic in the book has something to do with Math, and knowledge that the humans have and the faeries don't. It feels like the book was written, and then someone said it was flat/normal. They didn't think it would have any real drive and so they added the idea that it could teach math some how (I haven't figured out really how) in order to give a way to disingenuous it from any other, simple fiction story.
I understand the idea behind making math fun. I like books that make math fun a LOT (if you want this kind of book see Math for Smarty Pants its AMAZING), as a kind I obsessed over them. That was why I wanted to review this book.Aside from saying over and over again how math was important it was never really applied in any way, AND there was still a second, more prominent explanation for the magic. That it came from nature/"elements" (not real elements, but the fire/water/air/earth kind... if something like Chlorine or Nitrogen had been used as the source of magic that would have made me SO happy!). This explanation was much more explained, and prominent part of the story than the Math knowledge part which is stressed so much in the ads / on the authors website. So I don't exactly understand what they were getting at.
The ads claim that math is the key used to stop the king... but its Magic that was used... its half explained that this spell was created through math... but it doesn't attempt to actually show us how (it would have been so cool if they had used some funky 4d geometric shape to trap the king, instead of a cube... or one of these!! (ya they are 2d but so what its MAGIC!)) There are so many interesting things about math that make it feel magical but over that it being said over and over that its important to these fairies its never shown or explained. I know the book is for grade 3-6... but your taking the goal to make math fun you should really include some math. The Math for Smarty Pants book above I bought myself with babysitting money in grade 5. It taught me what factorials are ( N!), they amused me greatly but i had no idea what they could be used for. If you are trying to combine real world math with magic you can make your math do whatever you want, just give me some math.
Aside from the book the author has a few learning things on her website. The game she made is kinda neat, and does attempt to put some of the Math/knowledge thing the book talks so much about into effect... so she is trying but when I was a kid I read 5 books for every book we talked about in class... I wouldn't have found this stuff if I was in grade 5. Also most of it is the normal, english book reviewing stuff.
Overall I liked the story, my biggest problem is I don't find the book matches up very well with the advertisements of it. Which to me, seems strange but a 5th grader wouldn't care and would have a fun time with the story.
Aside from the book the author has a few learning things on her website. The game she made is kinda neat, and does attempt to put some of the Math/knowledge thing the book talks so much about into effect... so she is trying but when I was a kid I read 5 books for every book we talked about in class... I wouldn't have found this stuff if I was in grade 5. Also most of it is the normal, english book reviewing stuff.
Overall I liked the story, my biggest problem is I don't find the book matches up very well with the advertisements of it. Which to me, seems strange but a 5th grader wouldn't care and would have a fun time with the story.
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