Books

How Counting Came to Be

In this comic and fanciful tale of courage and ingenuity, cave girl Ugh Poppi goes on a quest to provide for her family. When she meets a new friend, they discover the value of creative thinking and the power of numbers and math.

When their last gourd smashes to the ground, Ugh Poppi’s cave family needs her help. She sets out on a perilous adventure to gather gourds on the other side of the river. But she doesn’t know how to find the Big Wide Open Place or the Not-So-Far-Away River with the Log Bridge that leads to the enormous Gourd Patch. She doesn’t even know exactly how many gourds she needs to bring home before dark. And when she meets a helpful stranger, it becomes clear they have another problem: nobody knows how to count. But Ugh Poppi, whose name means “girl-who-thinks-too-much,” meets every challenge with imagination and a positive approach to problem solving. By working together, she and her new friend create an astonishing invention that will change everyone’s life forever.

This is a beautifully illustrated and lively children’s book in the tradition of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Whether read aloud or solo, this book provides a funny and charming adventure where thinking, persistence, and collaboration lead to a life-changing discovery about math, STEM, and the world around us.  

This Is Like That: Poems and Process

This Is Like That: Poems and Process, is a collection of poems punctuated with reflections on the creative process. The book invites the reader to linger over the poems, to write in the book, to reflect on his or her own moments of inspiration and how those moments can eventually become a work of art.

Poetry happens. To the poet and to the reader. Something remarkable occurs. The poet forges that something into a poem capable of making it happen again for the reader. Maybe you dislike poetry. Some do. But it’s calling for you, like those geese honking across the sky at sunset.

Cover art, Wild Teasel, by Barbara Garwood.

AVAILABLE AT:
INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES EVERYWHERE

To purchase online from any independent bookstore, you can use this link for Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/20558/9798218075460

AMAZON: https://a.co/d/ec0V2Tp

BARNES AND NOBLE: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/this-is-like-that-mandy-monath/1142400629?ean=9798218075460