This is a list of mathematical (mostly kid-oriented) books that I have come across and enjoyed/found useful. I have split them into several categories that made sense to me. Let me know if you think some obvious category is missing or something is miscategorized – this is very much a work in progress! Also, I’m always on the lookout for new, fun math books so tell me about yours in the comments!
Books for parents and teachers
Math From Three to Seven by Alexander Zvonkin is the book that inspired me to start math “lessons” with my older daughter at an early age. It was my bedtime reading for a long time, and sometimes still is. It is filled with great thoughts, stories, ideas and activities. While it was written about kids of ages 4-7, there is much to be found for older kids as well. As a bonus, it is a great read!
Other books with fun activities to do with kids in a class setting or at home.
Math Circles for Elementary School Students
Beyond School Math
These workbooks by Jane Kats are not like anything else I have seen. Through fun “logic” activities, they give kids glimpses of many areas of math that are mostly not touched upon in school: graph theory, topology, number theory, 2D and 3D geometry, algebra, logic – to name a few. And all of this in an age appropriate way!
Mousematics: Learning Math the Fun Way (ages 6-7)
Mousematics: Learning Math the Fun Way (ages 5-6)
Mousematics: Learning Math the Fun Way (age 4)
Mousematics: Christmas Coloring Book (ages 4-6)
While these books from the Art of Problem Solving present many topics that kids do encounter in school, they do so at a much deeper level. The “guide” books are presented as fun comics and the “workbooks” contain problems, many of which require thinking!
Art of Problem Solving Beast Academy (grade 3)
Art of Problem Solving Beast Academy (grade 4)
Math Picture Books
How big is a foot? – great conceptual introduction to units of measurement
Equal Shmequal – “equal” can mean different things!
The greedy triangle – cute story, kid’s intro to limits
How much is a million? – a sense for big numbers
How many jelly beans? – a sense for big numbers
Sir Cumference and All the King’s Tens – decent introduction to place value
Math-y Chapter Books
Puzzle Books
Pretty much everything written by Martin Gardner is great. Here are two of his puzzle books in which I found some puzzles I could give to little kids.
My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles
Perplexing Puzzles and Tantalizing Teasers
Most of these puzzles by Boris Kordemsky require a bit more math knowledge:
And finally some by Peter Winkler that are not for the weak at heart. Fun problems for real math enthusiasts.
Musings of a Mathematical Mom 
Probably, Measurement by Paul Lockhart can give you some ideas for lessons about geometry and, well, measurements for little kids. As for the challenging problems, Are you smart enough to work at Google by William Poundstone has some original ones, as well as a lot of variations of classical puzzles.
LikeLike
Haven’t read either one of those, but I’ve heard many great things about Lockhart’s book. Will try to get my hands on it sometime soon.
LikeLike
You Can Count on Monsters by Richard Evan Schwartz is a great picture book on factors and prime numbers. See my post http://pinkmathematics.blogspot.fr/2013/02/important-factors.html (scroll down).
LikeLike
Thanks! It looks really interesting. I’ll definitely check it out.
LikeLike
I think in section of Math Picture Book you should add “The Number Devil” which have been written by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. This book is great for kids or adult. I have been reading it twice.
LikeLike
I’ve briefly flipped through it before and remember it being quite fun. However, I think it’s much more than a “picture book.” Might need to start a new category :-). Something like “Mathy chapter books.”
LikeLike
New category added!
LikeLike
Reposted from Facebook:
Rasamat Debora: Go figure! By Johnny Ball and Cookie count by Sabuda( beautifully made :)- for little ones
LikeLike
Buying mousematics for Age 4 now. Can’t wait to try it out.
LikeLike
I’ll be curious to hear what you think of it.
LikeLike
The Stanford mathematics problem book by George Polya
My best mathematical and logic puzzles by Martin Gardner
My son’s( 8 y.o) favorite – Alice in Puzzleland by Raymond Smullyan
LikeLike
What age group is the Stanford book aimed at?
The Gardner book is in the list 🙂
As for Smullyan, I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never read anything by him, although I heard many great things about his books. I may just have to change that 🙂
LikeLike
Stanford book – for High school students.
Smullyan is great. Puzzles are really interesting and apart from math/ logic, I love the language 🙂
You can find his book online in PDF format
LikeLiked by 1 person
I second Smullyan’s books.
LikeLike
Alice in Puzzleland ordered!
LikeLike
You forgot – we have it in Russian 😉
LikeLike
All books by Mitsumasa Anno are highly recommended . Suitable for kids 2 y.o. +. Princeton library has a lot of them. Beautiful pictures, almost no words, great presentation of math concepts. Math and art in one:)
Check also Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith ( picture book )
LikeLike
Thanks! I should check out Anno’s books for Zoe.
Math Curse has been on my amazon wish list for a while, but I somehow haven’t gotten around to ordering it.
LikeLike
I second Mitsumasa Anno – I have a collection of his increasingly hard-to-get books!
LikeLike
There seem to be a number of them available on amazon. Any particular ones that would be good to start with?
LikeLike
Another Facebook repost:
Kathy Lin: Hannah likes Penrose the Mathematical Cat (which I’ve only read a bit), and we recently got a MOEMS problem book that looks pretty good–challenging problems that don’t require much math background.
LikeLike
He did a series of “Anno’s Maths Games” which are hard to get. But more than that I like Anno’s Hat Tricks (logic), Anno’s Mysterious Counting Jar, Anno’s Magic Seeds, and Anno’s Magical ABC: An Anamorphic Alphabet. (I like all his books actually, but not all are mathematical.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! I found a used copy of “Anno’s Math Games” on amazon and hopefully soon it’ll be on it’s way to me 🙂
LikeLike
Yet more from FB:
Alison Miller: In the chapter book section: Math for Smarty Pants and the I Hate Mathematics Book by Marilyn Burns.
Seconding Gardner, Anno, and Smullyan. The Aha! books (which have been republished in one volume: http://www.amazon.com/Aha-Insight-Gotcha…/dp/0883855518) are excellent entry-level Gardner.
It’s exciting to see how much more is available now than when I was a kid!
LikeLike