The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure » (First Edition)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is the author of many highly lauded books, including Civil Wars: From L.A. to Bosnia. He lives in Munich.

Rotraut Susanne Berner is an illustrator who lives in Heidelberg.

Michael Henry Heim is a prize-winning translator who teaches at UCLA.

In twelve dreams, a twelve-year-old boy who hates math discovers the amazing world of numbers: infinite numbers, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, numbers that magically appear in triangles, and numbers that expand without end. As readers dream with him, they are taken further and further into mathematical theory, until everyone, from those who fumble over fractions to those who solve complex equations in their heads, winds up marveling at what numbers can do.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is one of those amazing thinkers who can write for the most advanced intellectuals and yet has the wit, charm, and sparkle to speak directly to children. In The Number Devil he brings together the surreal logic of "Alice in Wonderland" with the kind of math all readers would love, if only they had a number devil to teach it to them.

Los Angeles Times

Adults who know a little about math will find this book as enlightening as younger readers will. - Martin Gardner