Frankie Pickle is back and better than ever. After turning the numbers into monsters instead of actually completing his math quiz, Frankie embarks on a weekend of preparation for a make-up test. Numbers come at him everywhere, from the grocery store to a "Yugimon" card game with his friend Kenny. Obviously, the appeal of these stories mostly come from Frankie's imagination-fueled adventures. ( )

I had mixed feeling about this book after reading it. I thought it was a pretty good book in some aspects but lacked in some areas overall. This book is about a boy named Frankie who is facing the challenge of studying for his upcoming math quiz. The idea of the book is set in Frankie's imagination as it takes him to a place called Arithmecca where he has to fight off "number monsters" with only his pencil. He has to defeat these math monsters which basically means he's studying, in order to pass his quiz. First of all, I thought the plot of the book was really genius. I loved the idea of having Frankie go to "another world" if you will, in order to fight monsters that represented the math problems that we was working on to study. I thought that it was something that many kids have problem thought about while studying and made for a book that they could really relate to. Next, this book is a chapter book that also has a lot of illustrations and comics throughout the book. At times I thought all the illustrations and comics got jumbled up with the text and made the pages seemed cluttered. This brings me to my next point which is the comics throughout the book. I think there could have been less of them but I did like them overall. This book is kind of geared towards boys and what better way to get a young boys attention than comic strips. ( )

Overwhelmed by the quiz on multiplication and division, Frankie resorts to doodling on the paper instead. Not looking kindly on Frankie’s number monsters filling the page, the teacher gives him another chance to take the quiz. Getting a second chance is a relief in a way but torture in another: it means Frankie needs to study math all weekend. Family members and friends seemingly sabotage his study time but are, in fact, engaging Frankie in real-life math: figuring percents and using coupons at the grocery store, playing games that require multiplication and division, and dealing with fractions as he and his dad double the ingredients in the recipe they make. From a story perspective, Frankie’s emotional arc is believable; readers will relate to his worries. While sometimes a bit forced, the mathematical connections create the context for when we really do math. The format has kid appeal, as the story is told in both prose and in graphic format (when Frankie’s imagination takes him on wild adventures). ( )

I really liked how relatable this book is. Everyone struggles with school sometimes and it’s nice to see a character who struggles as well. The character was very believable, especially when it came to choosing between having fun with friends and studying for his math quiz. I thought that part was very fumy. I also loved how the book itself was organized. It switched back and forth from narrative to a comic which was pretty cool. The comic part was always him battling math in some kind of way which made math more fun. It definitely made the book more fun to read. Lastly, I liked the message of the book; school doesn’t always have to be hard and boring. There’s always a way to make it relate to the real world and make it fun. ( )

The message for this story is that math doesn’t always have to be boring, math can be fun.
I thought this book was quite excellent. I enjoyed the overall message because it shows children that math is important and can be fun if they are presented in a certain way. Not all children can simply sit at a desk and do math problems but that is not the only way for a child to learn. I thought it was a good idea to incorporate different ways of practicing math.
I also enjoyed that this book had long paragraphs incorporated with comic strips. I think the graphic strips pulled young readers in because they are not intimidating and incorporate short phrases or sentences. Once the child is interested in the overall story, they begin to read long paragraphs. I think it is a very effective balance between the two ( )