10 Nonfiction Children’s Books That Humanize Mathematics

As a young math student, Rachel Eng memorized formulas and theorems, but she never learned about the mathematicians who developed them. Nor did she hear about the controversies and dramas that surrounded their ideas. If math had a history, she never encountered it. “It gave me a sense that math was a really abstract subject with no grounding,” said Eng, who is now a teacher. As an undergraduate math major, Eng found a new perspective. During an independent study, a professor gave her a list of math fiction and nonfiction books to read, such as “Zero: A Biography of a Dangerous Idea” by Charles Seife. Through such books, Eng began to view math as “diverse, evolving, quirky and sometimes even chilling.” In short: “Math came alive.”
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