Blogger Book Club

It's not always easy being the middle child in a mathematically gifted family. Gregory K's family thinks anyone who doesn't love math is...well, crazy. Gregory would be fibbing if he said he loved math. His passion is for writing and he really wants to go to Author's Camp this summer with his best friend Kelly. However, Gregory is practically failing math and he needs to pass it if he has any chance of going to Author's Camp. Gregory lies to his parents about his love of math and enters a huge citywide math contest to try to please his parents and Mr. Davis, his math teacher. He also fibs to Kelly and tells her his parents have already said yes to going to camp. How is he going to accomplish all of this?

 Luckily Gregory has great friends and a math teacher that guides him along the way (even though Gregory never recognizes Mr. D's guidance). Mr. Davis has him journal about math; how he sees math, where he see math, questions about math. (This Mr. Davis knows his students!) When Mr. Davis has Gregory journal about the Fibonacci Sequence, a famous mathematical formula, Gregory has an "aha" moment and knows the topic of his math project. The Fibonacci Sequence inspires Gregory to write poetry based on the formula, which he entitles "Fibs." Will this new discovery be able to help Gregory pass math class, get his parents approval and enable him to go to Author's Camp?

Reading and writing are more my thing, but I did enjoy how the author, Greg Pincus weaved math into the story. This is another conflict going on in the story with Kelly but I won't disclose that little detail. However, I will tell you that you will want to eat pie or cookies at certain parts of this book. Kelly's mom is an incredible baker and at time your tummy rumbles for baked goods. I also like how Gregory's parents finally begin to really get to know Gregory (better late than never). It reminds us that sometimes we need to take a step back and look at the people we think we know well. It may give us extra insight to talents we may have been blind to before that extra look.