These book pages are a work in progress. Over the next several months, I will continue to add favorites from my own overflowing bookshelves and books I have enjoyed from my local library (and a few that I’ve only coveted online). If you know of a book I missed, please let me know. I would love to add it to my library loan reading list.
Learn with Living Books
I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. What I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. We give him miserable little textbooks, mere compendiums of facts, which he is to learn off and say and produce at an examination; or we give him various knowledge in the form of warm diluents, prepared by his teacher with perhaps some grain of living thought to the gallon. And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children.
— Charlotte Mason
Schoolbooks and How They Make for Education
A child’s intercourse must always be with good books, the best that we can find. We must put into their hands the sources which we must needs use for ourselves, the best books of the best writers. For the mind is capable of dealing with only one kind of food; it lives, grows and is nourished upon ideas only; mere information is to it as a meal of sawdust to the body.
Browse and Enjoy
Within each subcategory, books are listed alphabetically by author. If you click on a book cover, the links take you to Amazon.com, where you can read reviews and other details (and where I earn a few cents of affiliate commission if you actually buy the book), but most of these books should be available through your public library or via inter-library loan. Ask a librarian to find you a copy — they love to help!
- Books for Parents and Other Teachers
A bookshelf full of math activities for your family, classroom, or math club.
- Picture Books and Early Readers
From counting books to math history, picture books offer a gentle introduction to a variety of topics. Elementary and middle school students will also enjoy many of these.
- Elementary and Middle School
Patterns, puzzles, games, and activities — here are plenty of ideas to get your children playing around with math.
- Problem Solving and Math Circles
From the elementary puzzles to Olympiad-level stumpers, the problems in these books will intrigue and challenge your students.
- High School and Beyond
These histories, biographies, and explanations of mathematical concepts are written for an adult general audience, so most of them assume no mathematical knowledge beyond a vague memory of high school.
Our business is to give [our students] mind-stuff, and both quality and quantity are essential. Naturally, each of us possesses this mind-stuff only in limited measure, but we know where to procure it; for the best thought the world possesses is stored in books; we must open books to children, the best books; our own concern is abundant provision and orderly serving.
Other Lists of Living Math Books
My bookshelves are limited to what I’ve read myself or seen online, but there are so many books in the world that I can’t possibly list them all. Round out your math education with:
- Literature for Learning Math Concepts
From the Living Math! site and home of the Living Math Forum.
- Math Books for Kids
From one of my favorite blogs: love2learn2day.
* * *
For more playful math links, check out my Internet Math Resources pages.
This blog is reader-supported.
If you’d like to help fund the blog on an on-going basis, then please join me on Patreon for mathy inspiration, tips, and an ever-growing archive of printable activities.
If you liked this post, and want to show your one-time appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal: paypal.me/DeniseGaskinsMath. If you go that route, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you.
Which I am going to say right now. Thank you!
“Math with Living Books” copyright © 2013 by Denise Gaskins.
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 