A collection of five historical fiction adventure stories, the second installment in the "Rubi Pi Adventure Series" to follow The Adventures of Rubi Pi and the Geometry Girls. Young heroines find themselves at turning points in history. Faced with colossal problems, they use math to find real-world solutions. How will their quick thinking and problem-solving direct the course of history?A master of young adult historical fiction, adventure, and mystery writing, Tom Durwood gives a fresh look at some of history's pivotal moments-from a mathematical perspective! STEM meets literary finesse with his usual flair for intrigue, suspense, and immersive dialogue. In his latest collection of short stories, smart girls take on gambling, bandits, swordplay, probability, and Bayes' Theorem!
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this one.
It's a collection of short historical fictions stories with female main characters using math. Okay, I can see a market. I can see it appealing to girls who love math and showing students creative ways math plays into the world outside of school. Each story is completely separate of the others and the author proivdes notes explaining the math concept and how his character used it after.
It was really choppy. The stories felt like they'd either been edited in chunks for space, or written with disjointed flow. It was hard to read stories that clumsy and cut off. And then I read in the notes after the fourth story that the author had pared them down a lot purposely because historical details "irritate most readers." Really? Not fans of historical fictions.
There are 5 stories. The first one takes up 40% of the book, making the others seem even skimpier and rushed. In general, every story needed more. More historical details, more flow, more....story.
What do you think??
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