Isobel Adds It Up

“An imaginative read-aloud recommended for teachers wanting to connect literacy and math and for public libraries looking to upgrade their collection of girl-empowering STEAM books.” –School Library Journal, starred review

“Sprawled across her bed, pencil poised, Isobel, a mathematically minded young Black girl, is eager to add, subtract, multiply, and divide her way to completing her homework assignment. In charming artwork, clouds of numbers, symbols, graphs, and equations billow from her busy brain and dance across the page in a swirl of arithematical bliss.” –School Library Journal, starred review

“Not only is it refreshing to read a story about a little girl who loves math, but it is also exciting to read a book in which a child learns to establish boundaries in a way that is kind and fair. Ford illustrates Isobel’s reality in full color, with skewed angles to emphasize the disruption to her routines; both the equations she’s trying to work and her imagined scenes are represented as monochrome, white-space–filling cartoons. An adorable story about friendship and learning how to state your needs.” —Kirkus Reviews