Zero! the number that almost wasn't

This cheerful picture book tells the story of how it took thousands of years for humans to realize that something was missing: a zero! It explains why it was so difficult to imagine something that actually meant nothing and documents how this emerging concept of nothingness fared in various civilizations around the world, taking several centuries to finally catch on. From the ancient Babylonians, the first to assign place values and realize that they needed a symbol showing nothing in this position, to Brahmagupta, a mathematician from India who wrote in Sanskrit to explain the significance of the numbers zero through nine, the plot follows the development of increasingly more complex math applications, from algebra (Persia) to calculating (Fibonacci) to calculus (Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz). The book mentions initial European resistance, including how a few Christian leaders actually banished zero, until the invention of the printing press helped spread the concept and led to innovations in physics, engineering, electronics, and computers. Appealing digital drawings and rich back matter (uses of zero in everyday language, definitions, a time line, references, a bibliography, and a key to historical clues found in the illustrations) help round out this unique and attractive STEM offering.

In a cheerful picture book populated by Hsu's inquisitive cartoon humans, Albee traces the history of the number zero. From the ancient Babylonians who invented place value four thousand years ago, to the Romans who developed a system of Vs, Is, and Xs; from the Mayans who had a concept of zero but no way to spread their idea to the rest of the world, to the Indian scribe who invented a symbol for zero and the Persian mathematician who popularized it, the invention of zero was a worldwide effort with triumphs and setbacks. Parts of Europe were perhaps the last to adopt the Hindu-Arabic number system, with Roman numerals persisting into the eighteenth century in some banking operations. (A timeline gives a "blurry" portrait of when various ­developments occurred.) The narrative treads lightly but doesn't gloss over ways in which Western xenophobia and religious fanaticism delayed zero's adoption. Meanwhile, the illustrations get into the spirit of archaeological inquiry with touches such as heritage breeds of dogs and sheep in the portrayal of historical communities and a nod to Halley's comet. Philosophical considerations ("why create a symbol to represent nothing?") and mention of the fields (e.g., physics, computing) that arose as a result of the Hindu-Arabic number system round out the presentation, while a few notes about definitions, a world map, and a bibliography complete the back matter. Place this book in the hands of a budding numerophile and watch them start to put two and two together. Anita L. BurkamMay/June 2025 p.105 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.