Building a Business. (Math on the Job). Rick Wunderlich. St. Catharines, ON: Crabtree, 2016. 32 pp., pbk., hc., & html, $9.95 (pbk.), $26.95 (List RLB), $21.56 (School RLB). ISBN 978-0-7787-2363-9 (pbk.), ISBN 978-0-7787-2357-8 (RLB), ISBN 978-1-4271-1738-0 (html). Subject Headings: Business mathematics-Juvenile literature. Mathematics-Juvenile literature. Grades 3-5 / Ages 8-10. Review by Willow Moonbeam. ***½ /4
	Caring for Marine Animals. (Math on the Job). Rick Wunderlich. St. Catharines, ON: Crabtree, 2016. 32 pp., pbk., hc., & html, $9.95 (pbk.), $26.95 (List RLB), $21.56 (School RLB). ISBN 978-0-7787-2384-6 (pbk.), ISBN 978-0-7787-2358-5 (RLB), ISBN 978-1-4271-1739-7 (html). Subject Headings: Marine animals-Juvenile literature. Animal specialists-Juvenile literature. Mathematics-Juvenile literature. Grades 3-5 / Ages 8-10. Review by Willow Moonbeam. ***½ /4
	Keeping People Healthy. (Math on the Job). Rick Wunderlich. St. Catharines, ON: Crabtree, 2016. 32 pp., pbk., hc., & html, $9.95 (pbk.), $26.95 (List RLB), $21.56 (School RLB). ISBN 978-0-7787-2365-3 (pbk.), ISBN 978-0-7787-2359-2 (RLB), ISBN 978-1-4271-1740-3 (html). Subject Headings: Marine Animals-Juvenile literature. Animal specialists-Juvenile literature. Grades 3-5 / Ages 8-10. Review by Willow Moonbeam. ***½ /4
	Serving Your Community. (Math on the Job). Rick Wunderlich. St. Catharines, ON: Crabtree, 2016. 32 pp., pbk., hc., & html, $9.95 (pbk.), $26.95 (List RLB), $21.56 (School RLB). ISBN 978-0-7787-2366-0 (pbk.), ISBN 978-0-7787-2360-8 (RLB), ISBN 978-1-4271-1741-0 (html). Subject Headings: Hazardous occupations-Juvenile literature. Mathematics-Juvenile literature. Grades 3-5 / Ages 8-10. Review by Willow Moonbeam. ***½ /4
	Working in Construction. (Math on the Job). Rick Wunderlich. St. Catharines, ON: Crabtree, 2016. 32 pp., pbk., hc., & html, $9.95 (pbk.), $26.95 (List RLB), $21.56 (School RLB). ISBN 978-0-7787-2369-1 (pbk.), ISBN 978-0-7787-2361-5 (RLB), ISBN 978-1-4271-1742-7 (html). Subject Headings: Construction industry-Mathematics-Juvenile literature. Mathematics-Juvenile literature. Grades 3-5 / Ages 8-10. Review by Willow Moonbeam. ***½ /4
	Working in Sports. (Math on the Job). Rick Wunderlich. St. Catharines, ON: Crabtree, 2016. 32 pp., pbk., hc., & html, $9.95 (pbk.), $26.95 (List RLB), $21.56 (School RLB). ISBN 978-0-7787-2371-4 (pbk.), ISBN 978-0-7787-2362-2 (RLB), ISBN 978-1-4271-1743-4 (html). Subject Headings: Sports-Mathematics-Juvenile literature. Mathematics-Juvenile literature. Grades 3-5 / Ages 8-10. Review by Willow Moonbeam. ***½ /4

excerpts:

Starting a Business
Creating your own business is an opportunity to use your own gifts and abilities to make a living doing what you enjoy. Entrepreneurs are people who start up and manage their own businesses. They are often excited and enthusiastic about their businesses and look forward to going to work each day. Imagine if you built your very own business one day! (From Building a Business.)

Career 1: Carpenter
Carpenters build and repair structures made from wood and other materials. Carpenters help build homes and public buildings such as schools and stores. Some carpenters build furniture such as tables, chairs, and cabinets. Carpenters use hand tools, such as hammers and tape measures, as well as power tools such as drills and electric saws. (From Working in Construction.)

Career 3: Sports Journalist
Becoming a sports journalist, or writer, is a great way to combine your love for sports with a career. Some journalists follow a particular sport, and travel with the teams to search for interesting stories. Others write the text for sports commentators to read on television or radio. (From Working in Sports.)

Many students do not realize that numerous important and interesting careers require a strong background in mathematics. Consequently, math is a crucial subject even for young children. The challenge is to get students to understand the value of persevering in the face of math curricula that do not always make the subject exciting and give few real life examples. Students will often say that they can understand business math easily because of the direct application whereas algebra is difficult since there is no obvious use for the math. It is never too early to start letting kids know that every job requires certain kinds of background knowledge, especially math and science. That is where the "Math on the Job" series comes in.

      What kinds of jobs appeal to children? How about sports, business, construction, health care, veterinary care and community service? These are the areas covered in the "Math on the Job" series, and the books do cover many of the kinds of high interest jobs that kids think of when asked what they want to do when they grow up. Each book starts with a brief introduction to the common theme of the work, and then there are three sections, one for each related job presented, such as medical doctor, registered nurse and nutritionist in Keeping People Healthy. At the end of each book are sources to learn more, a glossary, an index and answers to all of the questions presented for each job.

      The "Math on the Job" series does not attempt to teach the math concepts, although there is a 'Math Toolbox' section for each job. Rather, each career encourages readers to actually use the math in a real situation related to the job and then to use problem-solving skills to advance their understanding and make decisions. It is obvious that Richard Wunderlich is a teacher as the examples used are interesting, appropriate to the age and suitable to the job. At the end of each career section is a 'Pathways' segment. The best part is here: almost every one of the careers includes the advice to stay in school and study math and science as well as to seek help from guidance counsellor and to get more information from someone in the field. There are also many photographs of people in action, continuing the high-interest theme throughout the series.

      Building a Business
Even if children are not thinking about owning a business as a possible career, they spend time in stores and should be able to envision owning a pet store, becoming a baker or designing video games. Many kids imagine designing the video games that they enjoy playing. The pictures are appealing making each of the careers attractive. The math includes comparing the value of various pricing, calculating wages and comparing fractions visually.

      Caring for Marine Animals
These are more unusual jobs, and it is doubtful that a child will know what an aquarist is although they will likely know about veterinarians. Placing these careers in the marine environment gives the series more variety and greater interest for the children who may be attracted to these books. The underwater photographs are amazing and even include highly magnified bacteria. The math includes fractions and decimals, converting pounds to kilograms, using a 24-hour clock and measurements using common referents like the length of a stride, all interesting choices that can draw in curious kids.

      Keeping People Healthy
Being a doctor is one of those careers that many children dream about as are the other two careers, registered nurse and nutritionist, with all three being the very definition of high interest possibilities for those in the target audience. he math is also appealing and important and includes graphing temperature change, rounding answers and calculating the amount to use for a serving of a recipe. This volume even discusses body mass index as a way to measure health.

      Serving Your Community
Fire fighters are very popular with children and adults, and the pictures on the cover should be enough to capture the attention of many children. he other careers are police officer and coast guard commander. The pictures in this volume are particularly exciting and appealing with lots of action and interest. The math includes calculating time and distance for the coast guard, finding patterns in numbers for the fire fighters and using pie charts to represent causes of an accident for the police officer. Great choices all!

      Working in Construction
Maybe these are not the first careers that children think of when asked for their choices, but these are well-paying jobs that literally create the world that we live in. We need carpenters, crane operators and electricians to build everything around us. The math is this book is the most practical of all as students could apply it in science classes, including converting measurements, estimating answers and actual electrical calculations of amps, volts and watts.

      Working in Sports
Here is an area where most people will not think of using math at all and, yet, there is very interesting math relating to all three of the careers, and one of them is actually the most math related of all - that of sports statistician. The other careers are professional baseball prospect/player and sports journalist. This book has the greatest variety of jobs, the most interesting math and the greatest appeal for those who may not be so interested in continuing to study math in school. Of course, journalists also need to study English and work on writing and interviewing skills. The section for being a player discusses estimating results, and the 'Math Toolbox' section involves converting fractions to decimals in relation to a person's batting average. The section on statistician discusses graphing both bar and line graphs rather than the more complex statistics that would be beyond the capabilities of the age group. There is enough, however, to intrigue the right kind of student to think about this career as a possibility, the important purpose of this series of books. Statistics are introduced in the section for sports journalist although the 'Math Toolbox' is about finding patterns in tables of statistics. Working in Sports is a great book!

      The "Math on the Job" series does a fantastic job of connecting appealing careers with the math and science that are necessary for those who might want to take up that occupation. Each career is given 7 to 12 pages with enough consistency to make for easy reading. Beginning with a description of the job and then "Thinking like…", the job is then used to set up a problem that the rest of the section can use for the math concepts while encouraging students to analyse what is going on and make good decisions.

      Since many students do not see the value in studying mathematics, any interesting books that encourage them to stay motivated can only be considered a great addition to every library. The wide variety of jobs highlighted in this series make it appropriate for lots of kids with different interests. Richard Wunderlich has created a magnificent series of books that can entice readers into the wonderful world of math, and this is not an oxymoron. Some of us really do love math – and the earlier you start the more likely this is to happen.

Highly Recommended.

Willow Moonbeam, a librarian and former community college math professor, lives in Toronto, ON, with two cats who are indifferent to math.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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