Everyday Math for Dummies

Isaac picked up "Everyday Math for Dummies" at the library. He saw the word "Math" and had to have it. Once he saw that it contained more words than numbers, however, he put it down. As I flipped through it I decided I would bring it home anyway, if only for the chapter on balancing your checkbook, a task I have always struggled to master. This is actually a very good book, providing an introduction to the Math that you wish that they would teach you in school - like how to balance a checkbook, figure out compound interest (OK - I think they taught that one in school but it had little real-world applicability at that point), and how to understand stock values and mortgage rates. And for those of you who really want to understand what they wanted to teach you in Algebra and Trig, it provides sections on that as well (I'll admit I skipped over those). I read the reviews on Amazon and some mentioned that it wasn't simple enough. I can understand that. You do need some understanding of basic math to get this book - adding, subtraction, multiplication, division, and percentages are all taken for granted here. Still, it was very interesting and helped explain some topics that had eluded me for years.