Review by Booklist Review
Born in India in 1887, Srinivasa Ramanujan asked many questions as he grew up. Noticing patterns in nature and the architecture around him, he became fascinated with number patterns, a passion that began during his childhood and continued throughout his life. As a young man, he pursued his math studies diligently and was invited to work with a mathematician at Cambridge University. Later, frequently ill and missing his family, he returned to India, where he died at age 32, leaving behind notebooks that have inspired other mathematicians to explore his ideas. Created with expressive lines and deep colors, Gade's digital illustrations often refer to numbers by featuring the sentence "They made patterns only he could see." The extensive back matter includes an account of Narayanan's journeys to places associated with Ramanujan, as well as instructions for solving math-pattern challenges and making mathematical "magic squares." The first picture-book biography of Ramanujan available in America and created by an Indian writer and illustrator, this volume admires his brilliance, while helping children to understand aspects of the mathematician's homeland.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 3--6--Spanning two continents and adroitly packing cultural information into its text and imagery, this story of Srinivasa Ramanujan opens with his childhood in India and ends with his untimely death at the age of 32 in England. Ramanujan grew up in rural India, fascinated by the patterns that he saw in daily life, discovering the language of mathematics therein and dreaming of following his true heart's goal of becoming a mathematician. Ramanujan grew up as a Brahmin in India and had to overcome barriers as he applied to study mathematics in England, took the leap to learn a new culture, and moved to Cambridge University to further his studies during the first world war. The story briefly mentions the difficulty Ramanujan had in assimilating into British culture, including the food, the cold weather, and being so far from India. The emotional depth of the story is shown through facial expressions done in brightly colored cartoon drawings with pen and ink. Interspersed with these drawings are visual representations of the mathematical concepts that fascinated Ramanujan. With roughly 50 words per page, the book uses Indian words for concepts and there is a glossary at the end to define terms, such as Brahmin. An afterword explains a few of Ramanujan's mathematical discoveries, as well as his importance among those of Indian descent. VERDICT A must-purchase for libraries, specifically for its handling of diversity and adversity among immigrants studying in higher education as well as its ability to show the childhood joy of discovering patterns and having that segue into higher mathematics.--Vi Ha
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Born in 1887 in southern India, Srinivasa Ramanujan would, before his untimely death in 1920, become one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. In an admiring view of an extraordinary individual, Narayanan chronicles Ramanujan's life: from curious young son of a clerk who sees numbers and patterns wherever he gazes, to his travels to Cambridge, England, where he impresses Europe's greatest mathematicians with his novel approaches to numerical thinking, and finally to his illness-induced return to India and death. The clear and succinct text explains Ramanujan's mathematical ideas in a thoroughly understandable manner. Gade's vivid digital art displays Ramanujan's unique mathematical daydreams for readers, helping them to begin to see the patterns that fascinated him. Numbers, patterns, graphs, and diagrams are scattered within most spreads, helping convey the idea that his mind never strayed from his obsession with numbers. Significant back matter (including an informative author's note, a glossary, and an explanation of magic squares) allows Narayanan to fully flesh out Ramanujan's continued importance to both the field of mathematics and the people of India. Eric CarpenterNovember/December 2023 p.103 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A searching portrait of a clerk's son whose fascination with numbers and number patterns led to renown. Narayanan rises to the challenge of explaining this mathematician's work in a nontechnical way by spinning her anecdotal picture of Srinivasa Ramanujan's sadly abbreviated life around his more easily understood sense of wonder: "Like an artist exploring forms and colors or a poet exploring words and images, Ramanujan threw himself into exploring numbers." That focus originated, she suggests, from an early consciousness of the patterns in his daily routines, like the repetitive Vedic chants and architectural structures of the nearby Sarangapani temple. A book of math problems left him "obsessed" with how numbers kept falling together into "patterns only he could see." That phrase serves as a refrain for what came after as he struggled with both physical and cultural obstacles to leave India for faraway Cambridge University, where, fortunately, it didn't take him long to make his mark before he died due to illness (tuberculosis, though this isn't mentioned in the text) in 1920, at the age of 32. Gade artfully captures his subject's keen, unselfconscious intelligence in lively views of a lad in a dhoti and, later (reluctantly donned), trousers staring intently at fanciful geometric figures and rows of numbers in strings, swirls, or tables to winkle out their secrets. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Inspirational reading even for audiences resolute in their math avoidance. (author's note, patterns in numbers, sample problems to solve, glossary) (Picture book biography. 7-10) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
