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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English
Weblink
http://www.jacobsandswender.com

SOLVING FOR M

Jennifer Swender

When life gets messy, who can you count on?

Mika has never been a math person. She's more of an artist. But ever since middle school started, she can't argue with the numbers:

293 = Number of fifth graders at Highbridge Middle School
28 = Amount of students in Mr. Vann's math class
25 = Entries in Mika's math journal
17 = Average science puns Dee Dee makes per day
1 = Total moles that mom had surgically removed from her leg
? = How many more doctors visits until Mom is better

Mika is nervous about starting middle school because her classes are all mixed up. In science, she has to write essays, and in art, she isn't allowed to draw. Most confounding is Mr. Vann, Mika's teacher who assigns each student a math journal. Who's ever heard of such a thing?

But when Mika's world gets turned upside down, her math journal becomes the perfect outlet for more than just homework. Through doodles and division, Mika strives to make sense of her her new normal. And when life fails to provide any easy answers, Mika is glad to find she has new friends, family, and one quirky teacher she can count on.

Debut middle grade author Jennifer Swender delivers poignant prose and illustrator Jennifer Naalchigar brings Mika's journal to life in this perfect equation of honesty and hope that adds up to a heartwarming coming-of-age story.


Veteran elementary school teacher Jennifer Swender burst on the picture book scene as one half of the husband/wife team that wrote New York City favorite My Subway Ride (Gibbs, Smith, 2006; Finalist of 2004 Foreword Magazine Children's Book of the Year) and followed it up with My Taxi Ride (Gibbs Smith, 2007). Her other picture books include Children's Songbag (Gibbs Smith, 2005), Putting on a Play (Gibbs Smith, 2005), Nascar ABC's (Gibbs Smith, 2007), Nascar 1, 2, 3's (Gibbs Smith, 2009), Fire Drill (Henry Holt, 2010), and Count on the Subway (Knopf, 2014). She is also the co-author of the chapter book series Animal Inn (Simon & Schuster, 2016) about a pet spa and hotel where the fun-and fur- flies!
Available products
Book

Published 2019-05-01 by Crown Books For Young Readers

Comments

"An artistic girl uses her math journal to come to terms with her mother's illness in this character-driven middle-grade novel. Swender fills Mika's journey with quiet hope and gradual adjustments. Mika's math-journal entries, featuring playful, doodle-like figures and words in childlike handwriting, liven up the story and provide insight into Mika's internal life. There are also plenty of supportive women characters who help Mika carry on, such as her grandmother, her dad's new wife, and her mom's best friend. A quiet but creative story about accepting change and uncertainty."

ABA Egitim

"Debut author Swender cleverly tells the story of shy artist Mika Barnes by interspersing entries of an illustrated math journal throughout her first-person narrative...Mika's journal entries prove both amusing and touching as she expresses her uncertainty and fear through numbers and drawings, and Swender nicely captures the mind-set of a child struggling to understand a parent's illness...the unusual format and the author's realistic portrayal of a girl navigating social and familial issues makes this a worthy read."