Greetings...

I've been told the Murderous Maths books from the Horrible Books folks can be grouped in the following fashion, and I'm wondering if someone could give me guidance on which book(s) to introduce first to my 9yo...

Murderous Maths : Essential Arithmetricks (2008 New Edition)
Murderous Maths : Numbers, the Key to the Universe
Murderous Maths : Murderous Maths (2008 New Edition)
Murderous Maths : More Murderous Maths (2008 New Edition)


Murderous Maths : Desperate Measures: Length, Area and Volume (2008 New Edition)
Murderous Maths : Vicious Circles and Other Savage Shapes
Murderous Maths : Mean and Vulgar Bits
Murderous Maths : Do You Feel Lucky? The Secrets of Probability


Murderous Maths : Phantom X
Murderous Maths : Fiendish Angletron
Murderous Maths : Perfect Sausage and Other Fundamental Formulas


Murderous Maths : Codes, How to Make Them and Break Them
Murderous Maths : Professor Fiendish's Book of Brain-Benders
Murderous Maths : Kakuro and Other Fiendish Number Puzzles


Thanks for input!

Hi,

I have all the books but never realised that they can be grouped.

FYI, this is the order of the books according to the website.

The first 2 is to create general interest:-
Murderous Maths
Murderous Maths : More Murderous Maths

These 2 explain all the basic math:-
Essential Arithmetricks
Mean and Vulgar Bits

The rest of the books followed a separate theme:
Desperate Measures: Length, Area and Volume
Do You Feel Lucky? The Secrets of Probability
Vicious Circles and Other Savage Shapes
Numbers, the Key to the Universe
Phantom X
Fiendish Angletron
Perfect Sausage and Other Fundamental Formulas
Professor Fiendish's Book of Diabolical Brain-benders

These 2 (and more) are fun books to solve:-
Codes, How to Make Them and Break Them
Kakuro and Other Fiendish Number Puzzles

HTH

Yes, thank you, this does help...

I suppose I'll start with one of those first books, now that I know which ones are first...

It sounds like the puzzles ones, the two you mention at the end of your post, would also be okay? Or should they be saved for later when into higher areas?

Thanks!

I think that if your kids have a passionate love for, say, geometry, then you can feel free to start with any of the geometry books.

Correct me if I'm wrong and just haven't gotten to one for which this is not true, but in my experience, the MM books really stand alone quite well. It's not a curriculum, where A must come before B which must come before C. Having some background is going to help, obviously, but provided you're available to answer questions, I don't think order matters a whole lot.

Though, again, I could be wrong because we haven't read them all yet...

We didn't buy them in order. There were some that were not available and we had to get them later. No difference to us (or to DS) at all. Happy reading!

I suppose it must depend on where one's child is ... wouldn't be very good to get an algebra book before one is doing algebra, or any of the other higher math areas...

Here's one site I found that gives a bit of order:

http://fun-books.com/books/murderous_maths.htm

Anyway, we now have our hands on the "first" book, the first one written, so we'll see what develops.

Based on this thread, I ordered the whole set from fun-books. Not all the books were included in the set on the website, but someone emailed me and said the backordered ones were coming in and did I want to add them at the set price. I did, so we have 12 of them.
They came today, just in time. GS9 has been off school due to remnants of hurricane Ike shutting down the tristate area of Ohio, KY, & IN. Yesterday he was telling me he wanted to skip 4th grade because he knows everything they're doing. We discussed it more this evening, after he saw the MM books. We're thinking this will get him through the day at school since his teacher allows him to read when he's waiting for the rest of the kids to finish. We also discussed additional books to go with his social studies, geography, & history. These MM books look perfect to introduce different math topics. He's had his head buried in one for the last two hours, his choice.

thanks to this thread (thank you!) we have located 6 titles of the Murderous Maths series - at our public alternative school's library, no less - and DS8 has absolutely DEVOURED them, giggling all the while. He read them all in about a week.

great suggestion!

I guess from your post you're somewhere in the tristate area of IN/OH/KY. I don't know if the fellow at horriblebooks.com has a shipping range (he's in southern California), but he sells all the Horrible books (including Murderous Maths) at 25% off retail, with no shipping if you pay by check.

Incidentally, my 81yo mother lives in KY, and she said the damage from the "remnants" of Ike was worse than that from many of the numerous tornadoes that have gone through that area over time. I guess there were more and higher sustained winds, unusual around there. I can't imagine what the stormmust have been like down south.

Anyway, glad the MM books are hitting the spot for someone! We have, as mentioned, the "first" one, but so far it hasn't hit my 9yo's favor as other HBs have done... maybe next year...

Yes, I'm in OH. We lost a 40' x 60' barn. We picked up pieces 1/4 mile away. We had a cow calve just 2 hours before the storm, in the barn. A wall collapsed into that pen, leaving just enough room for that cow and another to stand. The calf was still lying down, and a beam fell right beside him. We were only out of power for 2 days but there were pockets of residences that were out for 8-9 days. Some houses are still out if it destroyed meters & such. There were quite a few fires when the power came back on, stoves had been left on inadvertantly, damaged wiring, etc.

I found the Horrible books website afer I'd ordered the others. I'll probably get some others through them.