The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure -- Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Paperback

The international best-seller that makes mathematics a thrilling exploration

In twelve dreams, Robert, a boy who hates math, meets a Number Devil, who leads him to discover the amazing world of numbers: infinite numbers, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, numbers that magically appear in triangles, and numbers that expand without end. As we dream with him, we are taken further and further into mathematical theory, where ideas eventually take flight, until everyone--from those who fumble over fractions to those who solve complex equations in their heads--winds up marveling at what numbers can do.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is a true polymath, the kind of superb intellectual who loves thinking and marshals all of his charm and wit to share his passions with the world. In The Number Devil, he brings together the surreal logic of Alice in Wonderland and the existential geometry of Flatland with the kind of math everyone would love, if only they had a number devil to teach them.

Author: Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Publisher: Holt McDougal
Published: 05/01/2000
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.25h x 6.25w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780805062991
Audience: Ages 9-12

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 4.4
Point Value: 4
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 55827 / Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/22/2000 pg. 95
Publishers Weekly 05/15/2000

About the Author

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is the author of many highly lauded books, including Civil Wars: From L.A. to Bosnia. He lives in Munich.

Rotraut Susanne Berner is an illustrator who lives in Heidelberg.

Michael Henry Heim is a prize-winning translator who teaches at UCLA.