The Lion's Share
A Tale of Halving Cake and Eating It, Too by Matthew McElligott
(1st grade - 3rd grade) In
this beautifully illustrated picture book, lion has baked a cake for
his friends,
but each of his greedy friends takes half the cake when it's
passed to them, leaving Lion with only a crumb. Ant feels
bad and offers to bake another cake. The others hear this, and not
wanting to look bad, each offers to likewise bake cakes for the lion,
but they each try to outdo each other, promising twice the cakes
promised by the previous guest. Soon, hundreds of cakes are
being
promised and the result is quite comical.
This is one of our favorites for teaching fractions as well as for teaching multiplication, division, and even generosity verses selfishness.
In
a starred review, School Library Journal said "The captivating ink and watercolor
illustrations... reinforce
the mathematical theme with humor and detail. Many layouts effectively
present a graphic display of the simple fraction concepts. The results
are terrific." Below are sample
pages from inside The
Lion's Share.
