Books
Der Zahlenteufel (The Number Devil)
A Bedtime Story for Someone Bothered by Math Anxiety
While in Berlin last spring, I told a German friend about our work at The Math inquiries Project. She was intrigued with our mission to help change the conversation about math and algebra so that more young people in California will stay with these studies and keep their career possibilities open.
She surprised me by saying that her daughter had some concerns about math and that she was reading a wonderful book with her called The Number Devil, by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, one of Germany’s most respected novelist/ poet / philosophers.
Originally written in German, this book has been a delightful discovery. How fabulous to have someone of such prestige write a book for young Germans with math anxiety.
And so, with my German teacher from the Goethe Institute in San Francisco, I began to read this charming book by slowly and lovingly translating a page at a time.
Two things happened in the process: first, I loved watching my teacher giggle with delight as I read Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s beautifully written words out loud to her; and second, I was personally charmed by the Number Devil as he quite cleverly opened up the story of math and numbers to Robert, our young hero. It is in Robert’s dreams that we meet this darling little old red man, who sits on mushrooms and, with his special cane, uses the clouds as a blackboard while writing all his number lessons in a lovely light purple color.
One of the first lessons Robert learns is how important zero is; then he learns about “hopping”? numbers, which are in fact exponents. I wanted to review this book here on the Math Mirror Book Page so that eighth graders in California would know that learning to be comfortable with math takes place in other countries, too. And parents all over the world find treasures like this book to help their children develop the math confidence that is critical so they will courageously stay with their math and algebra studies. This book is available in an English translation. The original German edition would be a super book for a German class in California to translate and study, as it is charming and useful - and, the German is exquisite.
Author Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Publisher Holt Paperbacks (May 1, 2000)
