THE BEST FOOD IN THE FOREST
Author: Mi-ae Lee
Illustrator: Yeon-joo Kim
Number of pages: 32
Publisher: big & SMALL Publishing (Australia) First published in: Unknown Translated into English in: 2016 Format: Picturebook Is the mathematical focus explicit in the story? Yes Is this story part of a mathematics story series? Yes (TanTan Math Story) Preview and/or purchase this book on the Amazon websites: UK, USA, AUS, CAN Synopsis by the author/publisher
Chef Bear wants to make a meal for all his forest friends. He wants to please as many of his friends as possible. He asks for their suggestions. He uses picture graphs to organize the information. What kind of meal does he make? |
“The meat line and the vegetable line were the same length. The fish line was shorter. "I'll cook meat and vegetables," said Chef Bear.”
Official review by MathsThroughStories.org:
Mi-ae Lee’s ‘The Best Food in the Forest’ is part of the world’s largest mathematical story picture book series, called TanTan Math Story (70+ titles). The English translation of this original South Korean version was done in 2016. The story is about Chef Bear who offers to make his animal friends in the forest the most delicious meal. He asks them to vote on three questions: which flavour they would like him to cook (salty, spicy or sweet), which ingredients they would like him to cook with (fresh meat, green vegetables or fresh fish) and how they would like him to prepare the food (frying, boiling or grilling). For each of these three decisions to be made, Chef Bear comes up with different ways to try to measure the votes accurately. The story does a great job in offering a meaningful context in which data handling can be used. The page illustrations showing three different pictograms are useful in helping young children visually grasp the data handling concept. Like most titles in this series, the book comes with a few mathematical word problems relating to the story to be solved at the end of the story. However, there is a small issue with the book/dish title and the reason behind it. The supposed reason behind Chef Bar refers to his dish as “The Best Food in the Forest” is because “you all chose it”. However, this is arguably not accurate. Firstly, an accurate name of the dish should be “The Most Popular Food in the Forest” because it is chosen by the highest number of animals, and hence not necessarily the ‘best’ food, but certainly the ‘most popular’ dish. Secondly, the “you all chose it” is also problematic as not all the animals have voted for the dish Bear Chef ends up cooking. Similarly, there is a small issue with either the original wording in Korean or the English translation. For example, the first decision the animals are asked to make is clearly about the flavour of the meal (salty, spicy or sweet), and yet the question Chef Bear supposedly asks his animal friends is “What kind of food would you like?”. It is only after re-reading the story a few times before we realised what the question was actually supposed to mean. All in all, ‘The Best Food in the Forest’ is a great story to introduce the concept of data handling to children aged 5+ years old, but teachers and parents should be aware of the aforementioned issues relating to some of the wording.
Recommended age range:
5 years old +
Relevant mathematics topics:
Data Handling
Possible teaching activities:
At MathsThroughStories.org, we believe that stories can be meaningfully incorporated in mathematics teaching in different ways. Thus, we are inviting you to share your experience of how you have used this story in your mathematics lesson with other members of the community. By sharing your experience with us, you will be added to our team of On-line Contributors here, where you can also find our submission guideline.
Mi-ae Lee’s ‘The Best Food in the Forest’ is part of the world’s largest mathematical story picture book series, called TanTan Math Story (70+ titles). The English translation of this original South Korean version was done in 2016. The story is about Chef Bear who offers to make his animal friends in the forest the most delicious meal. He asks them to vote on three questions: which flavour they would like him to cook (salty, spicy or sweet), which ingredients they would like him to cook with (fresh meat, green vegetables or fresh fish) and how they would like him to prepare the food (frying, boiling or grilling). For each of these three decisions to be made, Chef Bear comes up with different ways to try to measure the votes accurately. The story does a great job in offering a meaningful context in which data handling can be used. The page illustrations showing three different pictograms are useful in helping young children visually grasp the data handling concept. Like most titles in this series, the book comes with a few mathematical word problems relating to the story to be solved at the end of the story. However, there is a small issue with the book/dish title and the reason behind it. The supposed reason behind Chef Bar refers to his dish as “The Best Food in the Forest” is because “you all chose it”. However, this is arguably not accurate. Firstly, an accurate name of the dish should be “The Most Popular Food in the Forest” because it is chosen by the highest number of animals, and hence not necessarily the ‘best’ food, but certainly the ‘most popular’ dish. Secondly, the “you all chose it” is also problematic as not all the animals have voted for the dish Bear Chef ends up cooking. Similarly, there is a small issue with either the original wording in Korean or the English translation. For example, the first decision the animals are asked to make is clearly about the flavour of the meal (salty, spicy or sweet), and yet the question Chef Bear supposedly asks his animal friends is “What kind of food would you like?”. It is only after re-reading the story a few times before we realised what the question was actually supposed to mean. All in all, ‘The Best Food in the Forest’ is a great story to introduce the concept of data handling to children aged 5+ years old, but teachers and parents should be aware of the aforementioned issues relating to some of the wording.
Recommended age range:
5 years old +
Relevant mathematics topics:
Data Handling
Possible teaching activities:
At MathsThroughStories.org, we believe that stories can be meaningfully incorporated in mathematics teaching in different ways. Thus, we are inviting you to share your experience of how you have used this story in your mathematics lesson with other members of the community. By sharing your experience with us, you will be added to our team of On-line Contributors here, where you can also find our submission guideline.