Marco did okay in math. He could follow the complex blueprints provided to him, navigate the steps, and arrive at the answers that earned him a shiny grade near the front of the alphabet. That is, until middle school. As new and confusing letters started creeping into every question, Marco developed a problem. When a new figure ‘pops’ into his life, he is introduced to a fantastical world where numbers rule, where they live together in villages, engage in duels, build stadiums and cheer for their favorite team as players are flung through the air. Marco’s imagination runs wild as he develops new powers and hungers for more.
But everything is not as it seems. Join Marco, his annoying little sister Maggie, and his best friends Oliver and Liam (a math whiz and a conspiracy nut), as they discover this magical world is more real than they ever could have dreamt. And find out… Will Marco master the Numberfolk before the Numberfolk, very literally, master him?
Marco the Great and the History of Numberville is the first installment in a fantastical adventure series that will have readers learning math and enjoying every minute of it. In addition, the text includes over 300 practice problems and solutions as well as access to an entire digital world allowing students to dive directly into Marco’s world with 40+ games to level-up their learning.
See the tour–wide giveaway at the end.
How did you come up with the idea for Marco the Great?
I have always been an avid reader and a lover of stories. When my daughters were young, we would read The Magic Treehouse series and I was so impressed with how well my kids could pick up on facts from fiction much better than they could with standard textbooks. The idea to create a similar mathematical fantasy world rattled around in my brain for years. It wasn’t until my daughter hit 6th grade and was really struggling that gave me the push I needed to help her. I was substituting a class and the way I happened to explain solving equations had a fun and creepy vibe to it. At that moment I finally knew what the story would be. I started writing and honestly haven’t stopped since! As a bonus, my daughter no longer ‘hates’ math, she has this wonderful excitement when she talks about it, she is so proud and confident, and she went from being behind to being a leader in her honors course. This alone was well worth it, and I so hope that Marco the Great can have a similar impact on students across the world.
How did you do research for Marco the Great?
The math was the easy part. I feel like I have been researching not only the content but the best way to present it to students for my entire personal life and professional career. Every one of the 100+ math textbooks I own, every experience as an educator, and every ‘aha’ moment contributed to the scope, sequence, and presentation of the topics.
I, in some way, researched everything else that went into Marco the Great. Sometimes this was a deep dive into Google or the books I have at home, but often it was just throwing myself into the experience. In one scene, Marco and Mr. Pikake do math in the snow. My kids and I physically did this. I wanted everything to be just right and believable. For instance, I needed to know how it sounds when you are shivering and trying to speak the character’s words. So we played it out! We even wrote out all the equations with a stick and took pictures of them to aid me as I wrote the scene.
Marco the Great has unique page numbers, how did you come up with this idea?
One goal of the book was to help students see that numbers are everywhere. There are numbers we see and don’t ever really think about, and there are others we don’t see that are governing the natural world like friction or gravity. The page numbers were a great place to highlight this. By making them different mathematical equations and expressions, my goal was to show that no matter how difficult the math might look, it’s just a number.
Every book has page numbers that serve as a way to reference and communicate information. They are something we often ignore. In Marco the Great you can’t miss the strange mix of letters and numbers taking over the bottom of each page and they differ depending on the chapter and the concept we are talking about. This provided both a fun and novel way for students to check their understanding and an opportunity to normalize complicated notation and make it more approachable. It had the added benefit of highlighting the unseen numbers we take for granted.
What makes your book different from what’s out there?
One of the reasons I finally took the terrifying leap to publish was because there wasn’t anything on the market. I am certainly a bibliophile and I searched and searched and came up empty. There are books that are math adjacent, but I found these never dug deep enough into the actual concepts. Books that did dig deep were textbooks or technical writing that were hard to read and felt like I had to first translate them into English and then try to understand what they were attempting to explain. Marco the Great presents rigorous mathematics in a way that is fun to read and much easier to comprehend. It uses the power of storytelling to provide a fresh perspective that I believe is so needed in today’s classrooms.
Do you have another profession besides writing?
My technical profession is educator and instructional designer. I have spent years designing and developing courses and curricular material which made the transition to writing a bit easier. A huge part of my educational philosophy is that learning should be fun. Most of my days are spent coding math games. I think that learning through play is the absolute best way to master new concepts.
The norm is for instructional designers to stay out of the classroom. I always felt this was a huge mistake. How can I design a strong and engaging curriculum if I am so removed from the students using it? So, throughout the years I have always kept one foot in the classroom. Not only does this bring me so much joy, energy, and purpose, it helps me to continue to understand the demographics I am designing for and what is important to them.
What is your next project?
I am very excited for the next book in the Marco the Great series: Marco the Great and the Mystery of Phaseville. It focuses on Algebra concepts such as functions and graphing. I am in love with the story and can’t wait to get everything just right.
What are the biggest rewards and challenges with writing Marco the Great?
The biggest reward is helping students to not fear numbers; to see their importance, and to feel more confident in learning and doing mathematics. There is so much talk about how math is useless, we don’t use what we learn in our daily lives. But I see it differently, I see math everywhere I look. Learning math is the process of making sense of the world around us, optimization, logic, engineering, it’s everything. If I can help a student to see, understand, and appreciate math, it is all worth it.
As a mom, how do you balance your time?
My kids inspire me. I watch how my teenagers respond to situations, funny things they say, and all of that goes into the story in some way. They help me a lot. I’ll read a passage and watch their reaction. When they smile or can’t help but let out a chuckle it tells me ‘that’s a good line’.
My husband is also a huge help. We both work from home and homeschool. We split things up. The kids rotate coming out into my office (my son is here with me now working on his own math homework) and then back inside. Everything is a balancing act, and I am sure I fail at it. But that’s okay. I try to do better every day and am so thankful for all the time I get with my kids.
Marco the Great and the History of Numberville is a MathBait publication. The first installment in the series covers standards from 6th & 7th grade Prealgebra. The exact topics can be found at www.mathbait.com/marco-the-great.
Marco the Great has a 4th-6th grade reading level and was written for a middle school audience. However, it is a great option for younger students as well, either independently or read aloud. Throughout his journey, Marco encounters bullying which may be uncomfortable for younger readers. Parents may skip the related passages (pages 22, 60, and 112), if desired, for the given audience
Find Marco the Great an the History of Numberville at Amazon.
We are doing a tour–wide giveaway of a signed copy of the book and a MathBait T-shirt. SK has THREE sets available for US and/or Canada winners.
Just click below.
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/463009dc9/
Author Bio:
SK Bennett is an award-winning educator, instructional designer, mathematician, and homeschool mom of five. She spent years designing courses for top companies and institutions before deciding it was time to embrace her belief that learning should be fun and math should never be all about memorization and rote procedures. Inspired by her favorite stories, she set out to create Marco’s world – where learning is an adventure and math is never ever boring.
Website: https://www.mathbait.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mathbait
Amazon: https://bit.ly/3RhtSZz
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135699300-marco-the-great-and-the-history-of-numberville
© 2014-2023- Ronovan Hester Copyright reserved. The author asserts his moral and legal rights over this work.
Lit World Interviews 