ALA Booklist (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2020)

Actor-author McKellar, who has a mathematics degree, uses catchy visuals to teach kids and parents multiplication and division in a way that's more entertaining than memorizing times tables. Colorful illustrations and appealing cartoon graphics, stories, and rhymes explain multidigit multiplication and long division. A cartoon McKellar and her cartoon animal companions, Mr. Mouse and Ms. Squirrel, time travel to different time periods and places, learning multiplication and division concepts (ancient Rome highlights rows versus columns, while chocolate bars illustrate arrays of squares to show area). Each chapter includes math games with answers at the end of the book. Comics sidebars have fun facts, and Quick Notes sections offer brief explanations of concepts or definitions. A new math translation guide at the end is helpful for parents includes arrays, area models, decomposing factors and decomposing multiplication, the box (or grid or window) method, a place-value chart for division, partial products, and fact families. The text and fun visuals make the book a useful way to teach mathematics to kids and parents alike.

Kirkus Reviews

A thorough introduction to understanding multiplication and division.In this follow-up to Do Not Open This Math Book: Addition + Subtraction (2018), celebrated mathematician, writer, and actor McKellar returns to guide young readers through multiplication and division via a punny time-machine motif. Comic strips that introduce each section feature McKellar and her two companions (pessimistic Mr. Mouse returns and is joined by peppy Ms. Squirrel) traveling through humorous historical anecdotes that serve as jumping-off points for the math, sometimes in unexpected ways. The organizational flow is intuitive. Charts and visualizations are presented to help readers solve basic problems by understanding number relationships; then memorization tricks are given to help master times tables (some clever, some rhymed); finally, McKellar tackles more complicated concepts (the order of operations, or PEMDAS-with pandas; multidigit problems; and long division). The visuals throughout help in keeping the material so simple that even adults will be able to follow math pedagogy they didn't learn but that's currently being used in schools (and there's a guide in the backmatter). The brilliant-through-simplicity textual explanations are easily accessible to independent readers, and the problem sets ("Game Time" sections in each chapter) are set up for readers to succeed. For extras and more math, McKellar points readers to the book's website and to her more-advanced middle school book, Math Doesn't Suck (2008).Multiplies the good times for young mathematicians. (answer key, index) (Nonfiction. 7-12)

School Library Journal (Fri May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2020)

Gr 2-4 McKellar's follow up to the successful math book, Do Not Open This Math Book , focuses on multiplication and division. Using methods from the Common Core State Standards, the math is described in easy-to-understand pictures and examples. McKellar provides methods for memorizing the times tables, but more importantly, explains in numerous ways why and how multiplication and division work. Colorful, simple illustrations fill most of the book; random historical facts break up the math and provide real-life scenarios. Some of the explanations are a bit confusing or superfluous, but the majority of the text is accessible and very useful to struggling students and those working ahead. Concept reviews, with plenty of practice problems, conclude each section. VERDICT While this title is confusing at times, it guides students through the entirety of multiplication and division taught in second through fourth grade. Some lessons may help struggling students grasp the concepts not understood in class and teach younger students who are working ahead. Suggested for most libraries. Katherine Rao, Palos Verdes Library District, CA