Marco did okay in math. He could follow the complex blueprints provided to him, navigate the steps, and arrive at the answers that earned him a shiny grade near the front of the alphabet. That is, until middle school. As new and confusing letters started creeping into every question, Marco developed a problem. When a new figure 'pops' into his life, he is introduced to a fantastical world where numbers rule, where they live together in villages, engage in duels, build stadiums and cheer for their favorite team as players are flung through the air. Marco's imagination runs wild as he develops new powers and hungers for more.
But everything is not as it seems. Join Marco, his annoying little sister Maggie, and his best friends Oliver and Liam (a math whiz and a conspiracy nut), as they discover this magical world is more real than they ever could have dreamt. And find out... Will Marco master the Numberfolk before the Numberfolk, very literally, master him?
Marco the Great and the History of Numberville is the first installment in a fantastical adventure series that will have readers learning math and enjoying every minute of it. In addition, the text includes over 300 practice problems and solutions as well as access to an entire digital world allowing students to dive directly into Marco's world with 40+ games to level up their learning.
Marco the Great and the History of Numberville is a MathBait publication. The first installment in the series covers standards from 6th & 7th grade Prealgebra. The exact topics can be found at
www.mathbait.com/marco-the-great.
Marco the Great has a 4th-6th grade reading level and was written for a middle school audience. However, it is a great option for younger students as well, either independently or read aloud. Throughout his journey, Marco encounters bullying which may be uncomfortable for younger readers. Parents may skip the related passages (pages 22, 60, and 112), if desired, for the given audience
SK Bennett is an award-winning educator, instructional designer, mathematician, and homeschool mom of five. She spent years designing courses for top companies and institutions before deciding it was time to embrace her belief that learning should be fun and math should never be all about memorization and rote procedures. Inspired by her favorite stories, she set out to create Marco's world - where learning is an adventure and math is never ever boring.
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Check out the interview with author!
SK Bennett author of Marco the Great and the History of Numberville
On writing:
How did you come up with the idea for Marco the Great?
I have always been an avid reader and a lover of stories. When my daughters were young, we would read The Magic Treehouse series and I was so impressed with how well my kids could pick up on facts from fiction much better than they could with standard textbooks. The idea to create a similar mathematical fantasy world rattled around in my brain for years. It wasn’t until my daughter hit 6th grade and was really struggling that gave me the push I needed to help her. I was substituting a class and the way I happened to explain solving equations had a fun and creepy vibe to it. At that moment I finally knew what the story would be. I started writing and honestly haven’t stopped since! As a bonus, my daughter no longer ‘hates’ math, she has this wonderful excitement when she talks about it, she is so proud and confident, and she went from being behind to being a leader in her honors course. This alone was well worth it, and I so hope that Marco the Great can have a similar impact on students across the world.
One goal of the book was to help students see that numbers are everywhere. There are numbers we see and don’t ever really think about, and there are others we don’t see that are governing the natural world like friction or gravity. The page numbers were a great place to highlight this. By making them different mathematical equations and expressions, my goal was to show that no matter how difficult the math might look, it’s just a number.
Every book has page numbers that serve as a way to reference and communicate information. They are something we often ignore. In Marco the Great you can’t miss the strange mix of letters and numbers taking over the bottom of each page and they differ depending on the chapter and the concept we are talking about. This provided both a fun and novel way for students to check their understanding and an opportunity to normalize complicated notation and make it more approachable. It had the added benefit of highlighting the unseen numbers we take for granted.
On Rituals:
Where do you write?
I love the sun. It is a ball of energy. It gives me energy. We had a sunroom built off the side of our house which is my office. I am surrounded by nature; I can see the trees and hear the birds and watch the squirrels and it inspires me.
Do you write every day?
When I am working on a project, yes. Maybe I take off for a holiday, but every other day, including weekends, I try to either get something new down or make something I previously wrote better.
In today’s tech-savvy world, most writers use a computer or laptop. Have you ever written parts of your book on paper?
Like most, I write on my computer. However, I need to read on paper. I need to see how the words fill the page. Once I get a rough draft, I print it and mark it up before going back to make the changes digitally.
As a mom, how do you balance your time?
My kids inspire me. I watch how my teenagers respond to situations, funny things they say, and all of that goes into the story in some way. They help me a lot. I’ll read a passage and watch their reaction. When they smile or can’t help but let out a chuckle it tells me ‘that’s a good line’.
My husband is also a huge help. We both work from home and homeschool. We split things up. The kids rotate coming out into my office (my son is here with me now working on his own math homework) and then back inside. Everything is a balancing act, and I am sure I fail at it. But that’s okay. I try to do better every day and am so thankful for all the time I get with my kids.
Excerpt from Marco the Great and the History of Numberville
The following is copyrighted material.
Chapter Five: Letters
Despite the enjoyment his tutoring sessions brought, he had not yet fallen in love with the educational jail known as Mrs. Sanders’ class. The beast of the day was word problems. In an unusual change of events, as his classmates struggled to translate sentences to numbers and letters, then to numbers, and finally back to words again – for the first time, Marco found himself at the head of the class.
“A new robot toy was released, and you are excited to buy it.” Mrs. Sanders always tried to make word problems have some interest to her students. While it was a nice thought, they all boiled down to an equation of some sort with all the context removed anyway. “It is listed for $50, but there will be a sale offering 20% off. How much will you save if you buy the game on sale?”
Oliver’s hand shot up. Marco’s best friend, like his sister, possessed a genetic supernatural power that made them number savants. While everyone else struggled to move an inch, they could come in and easily jump a mile. The fact that Oliver was also the class clown and always in trouble helped balance the nugget of jealousy that ached in the pit of Marco’s stomach.
“Yes, Oliver?” Mrs. Sanders pointed to her student. “You will save 20%,” Oliver answered with a smirk. Quiet giggles erupted from all corners of the classroom.
After a sharp look, Mrs. Sanders painted her smile back on and responded, “You are correct. But how much money would that be?” In an instant, the class became the robots from the problem and following their programming, they all put their heads down and began scribbling on the paper in front of them. Unlike his cyborg peers, Marco put his head down, but wrote nothing on his paper. He had a different idea. Remembering what he had talked about with Mr. Pikake – that numbers are ours to control – he let his imagination take over.
Knowing that ‘percent’ meant ‘out of 100’, Marco saw the number 100. A vacuum cleaner was sucking out 20s from the number. SLURP! Now, it was an 80 and a 20. SLURP! Now two 20s and a 60. Marco kept sucking at the number until it lay on the ground as five disoriented 20s. He turned his attention to the $50 from the question. He changed the settings to rip the 50 into five pieces as well in one mouthful. SLURP! Five 10s shot out the back.1
He slowly raised his hand. Oliver shot Marco a look that read ‘what are you doing?’ “Marco,” Mrs. Sanders called.
“10?” Marco answered reluctantly.
Mrs. Sanders looked at the clock which read 9:58, “No, it’s not quite 10 yet,” she responded. “No. The question. You’d save ten dollars.”
Her face frozen in a state of shock, Mrs. Sanders looked down at her paper and back up at Marco. “Oh, um, yes. That is correct, Marco. Nice job.”
Riding his math high for the rest of the day, Marco was silently thrilled when Oliver took it upon himself to recount the event for Liam at lunch.
“You should have seen it, man!” Oliver exclaimed. “The teacher couldn’t even solve it as fast as Marco.” He turned to add, “Your tutoring must be going well.”
Marco pushed and pushed but couldn’t hide his smile. His green eyes were bright with excitement as he began to tell his friends about Mr. Pikake. “He’s a little crazy, I’m not going to lie. It makes things fun. It’s like a video game, but rather than zombies, we are hunting numbers.” Pretending to be a character in the boy’s favorite game, Marco mimed out a zombie hunt.
“Are they evil numbers trying to eat your brain?” Liam laughed. Although Marco hadn’t thought about it before, the way Mr. Pikake talked about numbers gave him the sense there was something dangerous about them. Realizing how bizarre that was, he shook the thought from his head.
1 What did Marco do here? The question Mrs. Sanders really asked was ‘What is 20% of $50?’ Since five 20’s make 100, he needed to know 5 of what would make 50. He split 50 into five pieces to discover each piece is a ten, meaning 20% of $50 is $10. You can do this with any question where the percentage is a factor of 100. My dog ate 12 pounds of food last month and he ate 25% more this month, how much did he eat? Since it takes four 25’s to make 100, how many fours make 12? Well, three of course. So, 25% of 12 is 3. Fido ate his normal 12 pounds plus the 3 more meaning he ate a total of 15 pounds of food this month – what a pig!
Giveaway
Signed copy of the book and a MathBait T-shirt. SK has THREE sets available for US and/or Canada winners.
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