A Grain of Rice

Reviewed by: Kris Zuidema - retired school librarian, Standish, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: October 8, 2018

Review

The original edition was first published in 1986 with a reprinted edition in 1995. This is the 2018 edition. In this retelling of a Chinese folktale a young farmer, Long Po, asks the Emperor for his daughter's hand in marriage in exchange for saving her life. All that Young Po requests as his reward is a single grain of rice doubled every day for a hundred days which sounds simple enough to the Emperor. This clever and humorous story is a lesson in exponential mathematics. It is beautifully illustrated in fine pencil drawings. At the end is an easy to understand explanation of the math by Daniel Rockmore, a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science from Dartmouth College. Young children will enjoy this delightful story and it would make a useful and fun addition to the math curriculum for middle grade students.

Overall Book Score: very good