Toads and Tessellations: A Math Adventure

Gr 3–5—Studying tessellations requires the energy of play and the focus of problem-solving, a wonderful subject for a story full of inspiration and blundering. Enzo is a magician's apprentice in late medieval Italy. His true passion is for the new ideas of mathematicians like Galileo and Kepler. As far as spell casting, he is no Strega Nona like his father. When the castle's housekeeper, renowned for her cruelty, requests 12 pairs of shoes to be made from one piece of fine leather for the 12 dancing princesses, the shoemaker Tessel comes running for Enzo's father, the local mago. He is away, so Enzo has to fill his shoes. He finds that using magic does not help when he inadvertently turns the shoemaker into a toad. Giving up on magic, he decides to take apart Tessel's shoe with Aida, the shoemaker's daughter. Once he turns to mathematics for inspiration, he and Aida begin to simplify the shapes, flip them, turn them, slide, and rotate them. They create a perigon of triangles and before long (and with a few laughs), they use tessellations successfully to meet the housekeeper's challenge. The illustrated glossary and notes in the back matter explain the mathematics, history, and current use of tessellations. The watercolor illustrations clearly and astutely express the necessary concepts, both mathematical and historical. There is even some fun embedded in them: 26 hidden tessellations for Where's Waldo fans.—Sara Lissa Paulson, American Sign Language and English Lower School, New York City