How Hungry Are You?

by Donna Jo Napoli

A delightful introduction to simple division follows two friends, who decide to have a picnic, as they are joined by ten excited picnickers who each bring a special treat, but when another avid picnicker shows up with nothing to offer, their calculations are turned upside-down.

Genres: Picture Books, Mathematics, Childrens, Counting, Animals

32 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

Donna Jo Napoli is both a linguist and a writer of children's and YA fiction. She loves to garden and bake bread, and even dreams of moving to the woods and becoming a naturalist.

At various times her house and yard have been filled with dogs, cats, birds, and rabbits. For thirteen years she had a cat named Taxi, and liked to go outside and call, "Taxi!" to make the neighbors wonder. But dear dear Taxi died in 2009.

She has five children, seven grandchildren, and currently lives outside Philadelphia. She received her BA in mathematics in 1970 and her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures in 1973, both from Harvard University, then did a postdoctoral year in Linguistics at MIT. She has since taught linguistics at Smith College, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Georgetown University, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and Swarthmore College. It was at UM that she earned tenure (in 1981) and became a full professor (in 1984). She has held visiting positions at the University of Queensland (Australia), the University of Geneva (Switzerland), Capital Normal University of Beijing (China), the University of Newcastle (UK), the University of Venice at Ca' Foscari (Italy), and the Siena School for the Liberal Arts (Italy) as well as lectured at the University of Sydney (Australia), Macquarie University (Australia), the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), and the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) and held a fellowship at Trinity College Dublin. In the area of linguistics she has authored, coauthored, edited, or coedited 17 books, ranging from theoretical linguistics to practical matters in language structure and use, including matters of interest to d/Deaf people. She has held grants and fellowships from numerous sources, including the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the Sloan Foundation.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This will be way over the heads of my preschoolers, but younger elementary age kids might enjoy figuring out all the math and it has a nice message of sharing and inclusion.

[Misbah · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bunch of animals go on a picnic. A quick and boring children's book.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grade Level-2nd -4th
Genre-Concept Book

This concept book is about simple division. Two friends decide to go on a picnic. One of them brings twelve sandwiches and the other brings bug juice. On the way to their picnic, they keep meeting more friends who also agree to bring 12 of each item. With a total of twelve friends, they each are going to get one sandwich, one slice of watermelon, one cookie, etc. Everything is fine until a thirteenth friend shows up with no food to bring and they are unsure how to divide the food. They eventually decide that everyone will get half of each thing and they will have lots of leftovers!

Activity 1: For a drama activity, students could act out the book. I would provide the students with props. This will work well because there are many characters and each character’s quotes in the book are easy to distinguish between.

Activity 2: As a class, students could complete a plot story map. For example, the main events would be when they decide to go on a picnic, meet a friend and add cookies to the picnic, meet another friend and add rice pudding packs, meet two friends and add chewing gum, etc.

[Julia Jasztal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mommy's review from 10/25/11 -


I didn't like how this was written at all. When we first cracked it open I kind of liked the fact that it was written different but it didn't make for easy reading IMO.
I suppose if a kid was reading this themselves it would work better but it's angled more towards the non-readers I think.
I go back and forth with Napoli's books, always have. Some I love, some I hate. Julia remembers some others we've read by this author and she said this isn't "one of the best."
I think we do have another one or two here waiting to be read so hopefully we'll like those better.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is all dialogue, which is odd, but it still had a storyline. The book is a worthwhile read if you're looking for a title that allows readers to look at the factors of twelve. It's a nice math book.

[Becca · Rating 2 out of 5]

All dialogue - animals go on a picnic and as more animals join in and more food is added, there is a running tally of how much each will eat at the picnic. Simple division - might work better as a script for a puppet show than as a read aloud.

[Stephanie Wycihowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

cute concept of a book about bringing food to a picnic! even has some math concepts involved too!

[Edna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clever math/division book that has animals splitting up and sharing food at a picnic so everyone gets something to eat.

[Little Miss and the Legomeister · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like the tiny pictures that showed who was speaking, and the abundance of dialog in this book. With so many characters and so much dialog this book felt too busy.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Bean Thirteen better.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book about sharing.