Introductory Calculus for Infants

Product Description

One reviewer notes that Introductory Calculus for Infants reads exactly as advertised, except that it won't teach your baby--or you--how to do calculus. She goes on to opine that all who actually expect a children's book... [Read more]

Top Reviews

An ABC book with a story (and introduction to mathematics)
by TwoPlusCute (5 out of 5 stars)
May 27, 2016

I was very pleasantly surprised when we bought the Introductory Calculus for Infants and I had the chance to read it.

It is primarily an ABC book, using mathematical concepts for each letter (like D for derivative). It has a compelling (and subtle in many aspects) story full of optimism, about friendship, being nice and believing in oneself. At the same time, it familiarizes infants with mathematics in a friendly and happy way. I believe that a child who was introduced to mathematics with this book, will make a future student that not only is not afraid of it but instead sees math as a funny old friend.

The drawings are large, clear (as they aim to a very young audience) and very humorous. The mathematical concepts are not only adequate, they are advanced if we keep in mind this is a book for infants. There is no problem solving but there often are, intelligent and child friendly puns that make this book a great read for infants and parents.

My infant daughter learned to read her alphabet mainly thanks to this book. We have read it countless times and though it has many creases, it is - surprisingly - not torn, but is coming apart in the seams as you can see in the attached image.

I do hope we see it as a board book one day, as it is indeed just paper and many infants will possibly tear it apart. Apart from that, it really is a brilliant book and makes for a great gift for infants, toddlers and pre-k ages.

I highly recommend this book.
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Great illustrated book that allows small children to see calculus as topic of fun and wonderment
by A. Aurelius (5 out of 5 stars)
May 17, 2015

I am an electrical engineer and research scientist, and in my occupation, calculus is a mathematical tool that we use daily. When my small son was born, I wanted him to immediately begin hearing words like, derivative, limit, integral, vector, line integral, gradient, etc..... Of course as a ten month old or a three year old, he would not fully appreciate the concepts behind the words, but he would become familiar with hearing them and not perceiving them as something that one should be afraid of.
I purchased this book for him when he was eight months old and even now that he is five years old, we still look at it once every few weeks. The book is filled with nice simple colorful pictures to capture an infant's attention followed by nice clear font and lettering. All of the main concepts of calculus are covered using clear pictures which a small child will naturally be drawn to examine. If you are someone familiar with mathematics, then by reading the book and explaining some of the colorful pictures, even a two or three year old can begin to form simple ideas that represent the concept of a limit, or a derivative or the summation process of an integral. My five year old is not a profoundly gifted child with a 210 IQ but he already knows what a derivative represents and what happens when something moves to a limit at infinity. And hopefully, now that he has those ideas down, when he is ready to dive into true calculus as an older child, he will see it as a topic that is both familiar and easy.
Will this book make your child more intelligent or raise their ability to understand mathematics? No, it will not. But most of the battle here in the Western World is simply convincing a young child in the first place that mathematics is an infinitely powerful tool for making sense of Nature and the numinous. If you allow them to change their mental perception by enjoying a simple illustrated book such as this, then the battle is already more than half won. And a lifetime spent with an appreciation of more advanced maths is one that will be greatly enriched.
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Our Baby Gives it 5 Stars, but...
by Customer Since 2005 (4 out of 5 stars)
May 4, 2019

I'm not sure where to start with this book. My first reaction was that it was really not about calculus nor was it for babies. After a first read, I put it in the "donate to library" stack downstairs in our home rather than showing it to our baby. Then the baby, my granddaughter, saw it in the stack, amongst other books, and grabbed it and started gurgling whatever it is 6-month-old babies gurgle about. This is now her go-to book in her toy box. So, she gives it a 5 while I would give it a 1. But, who is this book for? Not me! It's for babies, so she wins, but I'd like my vote of 1 star to count for something when calculating the mean, so I gave her vote of 5 stars a weight of 1.4, making the total stars 4. When she learns to speak properly rather than in baby gurgles, then we can have a discussion about whether this is fair. One last thing in this rambling and boring review, I've found that so many baby books are full of words (surprise!) and not a lot of numbers. If you've used phonetics to teach your toddler to read (see larrysanger.org/2010/12/baby-reading ), then you might come to the same conclusion as me, namely, reading is a lot more complicated than mathematics. We seem to intuitively know that, so we expose our kids to pages and pages of words and pretty much leave the math to take care of itself, only to have our children enter school to learn that math is too hard. My son was a bit of a maths wiz, being promoted to university mathematics classes in high school, and now that he is in his thirties he tells me: "In grammar school, those teachers couldn't even factor simple exponential binomials, leaving myself and other students wondering what was wrong with them. Instead of learning the process, they would spend class time telling us how hard math was." What my son didn't know was that we would throw in a book full of numbers along with his other books which were full of letters/words so that he could start at an early age to see how easy it was to manipulate equations. So, no matter how much I don't like this "Introductory Calculus for Babies", it appeals to my granddaughter and introduces her to mathematics concepts and she sees a book which doesn't just have letters in it. By the way, one book the both of us like is "The Pythagorean Theorem for Babies", by Carlson. If you can find the time, please have a look and compare it to "Introductory Calculus for Babies" and see what you think. Finally, one last book which she just can't put down is "123", by Jo Ryan, Sarah Powell, and Amy Oliver. It is a great introduction to counting for babies, probably because it has texture and they like to run their fingers over the items to enumerate (at least that's true for our granddaughter). Happy counting!
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Calculus? more like Calcu-less
by nate barlow (1 out of 5 stars)
June 26, 2019

As an infant, I find the book to be a bit of a disappointment. Much to my dismay, the pages did not taste like cheese and they easily softened in my mouth. Here are my suggestions for improvement. Make in hard-cover, preferably with cheese flavored pages. The letters should be replaced with ducks. Also, the numbers should be replaced with ducks. Also, the mathematical symbols should be replaced with ducks.
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This is an alphabet book that uses math-themed words. ...
by Julie (2 out of 5 stars)
July 23, 2015

This is an alphabet book that uses math-themed words. For example, for the letter "E", the page says "You can be Exponential" and shows the graph of an exponential function. The letter "K" says "You can be the King of Knowledge" and shows a piecewise function that somewhat resembles a castle.

I would prefer the "for babies" books by Fred Carlson, which have simply worded explanations of mathematicals concepts.
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Favorite book!
by R. Wake (5 out of 5 stars)
April 20, 2014

Like some others here, I got this kind of as a joke for my engineer husband to read to our almost 2 year old. She LOVES it! Not only does she make him read it to her, but now I have to read it as well, over and over. And anyone who is looking after her has to read it too, in confused and faltering tones. I lose track as soon as it gets to the graphs lol, in pretty sure my kid now understands calculus better than I do. It's also really helped with her letters, she points out F and X in other texts and names them. Great book!
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Such a fun story! My 3 month old LOVES this book
by Ashley Curtis (5 out of 5 stars)
January 8, 2018

Such a fun story! My 3 month old LOVES this book. The babies in the pictures are fun for him to look at. He will listen to the story from start to finish. We started reading this book to him when he was just 3 weeks old and it has held his attention from the start. I even learned something new! The pictures are colorful and the content is well written, I can't wait to add activities to support the text when he gets older.
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So cute!
by Liz (4 out of 5 stars)
March 30, 2015

I absolutely love this book. I'm only giving 4 stars because I wish it was a board book. My daughter wants to tear the pages. But the contents are so cute. It has a great non-calculus lesson as well. Now if the author would just offer it in a board book. I'd definitely pay more for it, and purchase it for all my engineer-mom friends.
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Awesome!!
by Sammy (5 out of 5 stars)
November 12, 2014

This was bought as a gift for my dad- he is a math fanatic. Growing up, my brother and I were always lectured (in a fun way) about math and various problems. My dad would often get out a dry erase board and lay out problems to be completed. To this day he expresses the firm belief in how influential math is in keeping the mind sharp. Unfortunately for my dad, neither of his kids expressed the same joy for mathematics. But on the plus kid, his granddaughter loves numbers! When my husband saw this book, he knew he had to buy it. With that said, I can't tell you how fantastic this math book is. My daughter loves it! My dad loves it! It's a win-win! The illustrations of the equations are simplistically bold. They catch your eye and draw you in. It is such a simple and fun way to learn about math. I wish they would use this in junior high/high schools. It definitely expresses math in a way that typically isn't done.

So to the math enthusiast, this book would make an excellent addition to some of those rigid and stiff math books that seem to dominate the subject.

Buy This Book!
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Not the best infant science book
by Chelsea Boyle (1 out of 5 stars)
September 18, 2017

I was extremely disappointed by this book. It's an alphabet book with calculus words to illustrate the ABCs, but no attempt is made to simplify and explain the actual concepts. One could argue that simply exposing babies to calculus words and symbols early will help math not be so scary later, but honestly the art in the book is too busy and cluttered to be engaging to young eyes. I returned my copy.

The very best ones are the Baby Loves Science series. Ruth Spiro and Irene Chan have a real gift. The next best are the Hello World series, for visual engagement, and the Chris Ferrie books for great simple explanations.

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