Grandma's Button Box

April 15, 2002
Gr. K-1. When Kelly drops Grandma's button box and the buttons scatter all over the room, she and her cousins scramble to find them and sort them out. First arranging them by shape, then by size, and finally by color, they can't decide how Grandma had arranged them. By the time their grandmother admits, "They were always just jumbled together," the cousins (and readers) have learned a bit about sorting and sets. The lesson is not intrusive, as the book introduces young students to concepts that they will meet again in math. The jaunty line-and-wash illustrations give a cheerful look to this simple story from the Math Matters series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)