Math in Picture Books: Featured Author Danica McKellar

We watcher her grow up as Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years.  

Fred Savage and Danica McKellar in The Wonder Years

She played Elsie Snuffin in The West Wing.  She’s the voice of Miss Martian in Young Justice.  She has starred in several Hallmark Channel movies, including Crown for Christmas, My Christmas Dream, and Campfire Kiss.  But, these are only a few of the many film and television roles, played by Actress, Danica McKellar.  (For more on Danica's acting credits, click Danica McKellar Filmography)

Danica's off-camera roles include summa cum laude graduate from UCLA with B.S. in mathematics, internationally recognized mathematician, education advocate, and best-selling author of the most beautiful counting book called, GOODNIGHT, NUMBERS, among other best-selling books featuring math.

Danica McKellar reading GOODNIGHT, NUMBERS with her son, Draco.

GOODNIGHT, NUMBERS is a math picture book that features beautiful watercolor illustrations of different families saying Goodnight to Numbers as they exist in the real world – four legs on a cat, five points on a star, six sides on a block, etc.   Reading this book to children shows them how numbers are an integral part of their world.

For example, here is an excerpt featuring number 3:

This page was modeled after Danica and her son, Draco.  Their dog, Sparticus, is on the couch.  Draco is playing with his favorite trash toys: trash, recycling, and green waste.  There are several groups of 3 (three buttons on the couch pillow, 3 couch pillows, 3 flowers embroidered on the couch scarf, three stripes on the lamp, 3 wheels on the tricycle, three stars on the toy box, even three buttons on Draco’s shirt, etc.)  Each page features a 10-frame illustrating the featured number.  In this case, it’s a picture on the wall of 3 groups of 3. 

I love this picture book  

As a math interventionist, one of my biggest goals/hopes/desires is for students to see the world as a mathematical world and not to fear math.  Danica McKellar is an author that shares this goal.  Danica’s blog entry entitled, “Why Math?” tells why Danica was attracted to math.

Here are some of my favorite quotes by Danica McKellar:

To read more of Danica McKellar's quotes, go to 

Danica McKellar Quotes

To learn more about Danica McKellar, visit her website 

Danica is the author of several picture books and middle-school books about Math.  Her middle school books focus on making math accessible, particularly to girls.  To find her books, go to McKellar Math.  Once there you can navigate her list of books by pressing your finger along an interactive slider starting at the lowest point (infants) to the highest point (adults) to select books by intended audience age.   

Who's your favorite math author?  I'd love to know!  Thank you for reading my post.  If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment.