Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi Paperback – February 1, 1999

Great book for kids to learn math in an entertaining way.

Having prepared myself for rejection, ready for rebuke for shoving math down her throat, I was rather amazed how my almost 8-year old granddaughter took to these books. Illustrations are nothing special, but effective. The child loves the punny names of all the characters. I now think she'll understand the concepts radius, diameter, circumference, pi, for the rest of her life.The child is only just beginning to learn her 2x, 3x multiplication tables, but she became so good after reading this book at thinking of circles in terms of Pi = Circumference divided by Diameter, I somewhat regretted that Knights of Angleland used angle measurements in degrees instead of radians. A missed opportunity. Because of this book, perhaps the first mathematical formula she truly understands is Circumference (read: Sir Cumference) = 2(Pi)(Radius) or (Pi)(Diameter). Using radians (Radius is Sir Cumference's son) as the angle measurement would both prepare kids for basic trig and allow for endless punning opportunities. Oh well ... maybe later in the series after old Sir Degrees passes away ...Even so, she liked it a lot more than I expected and it taught the material well. Hit right in her wheelhouse for reading level and just a hair ahead of her in math, though it's given her an incentive (among several) to learn her multiplication tables, which have been met with less resistance than one might suspect. She's voraciously read Dragons of Pi, Knights of Angleland, and the First Roundtable, all at least twice, this one four times, at least, so we're going to try a couple more.For me as an adult, I almost went with four stars because the illustrations aren't particularly inspiring. But based on how elegantly it treats the subject matter and the impressive reaction from my focus group of one, on her behalf I'll go with five. I wasn't expecting Sir Cumference to become a house favorite, but lately there always seems to be a copy near the top of the stack.

We're a family of geeks and we have a brand-new granddaughter, so we're always looking for books for her. This book introduces the concept of pi to kids. The names are what I like best, though: Sir Cumference, Lady Di of Ameter, their son Radius, and more. The book doesn't talk down to kids, but it's not overly complicated, either. We love reading it to her.

Fun story, but not much clear instruction on pi.

We bought this initially to help our school celebrate "Pi Day" (March 14). It is a fun story and has a clever use of geometric terms (beyond the title). The concepts were a little tricky for the kindergarteners, but they loved the story and we were happy to at least introduce them to the concepts, even if they didn't get all of the math behind it. Our third graders, on the other hand, still loved the story, but were able to begin to appreciate the math and could make the connections between the two. Even our sixth graders enjoyed the story, and were excited to hear the next geometry name page after page! Because of how fun and educational this book is, we are going to try some of the others in this series next!

My 8 year old grandson seemed to enjoy this book that we read together.

This book is an excellent way of teaching the concept of Pi. I struggled to learn that in school, and never fully understood what it was until I read this book at 37 years old! I know now that I will never forget it again. My teachers should have used resources like these and might have had a much easier time in math. My kids will have the benefit of these books and I recommend them to anyone who wants to break out of the box of boring old textbooks and find a creative and memorable way to teach their kids/students math.

Purchased this book in preparation for Pi Day while homeschooling my 5 and 7 year old. Geometry is a little advanced for them, but I didn’t want them thinking it was “pie” day. This book was a perfect adventure to get them to understand the concept enough that we’re having fun and I’m not totally botching my kids’ education. I’m also going to copy their technique used in making pies with my kids on 3.14