This book is for kids who have just started learning multiplication. When memorizing times tables looms ahead, the fear of the math monster creeps in and spoils what should be a lot of fun at school. I bribed my 7-year-old son with some TV time and chocolates to memorize the x3 table, but this only confirmed his belief that math is a scary tsunami of ever growing numbers and formulas that he would rather never encounter. As a kid I struggled with math too. My Dad is a mathematician. He helped to propel me through high school math, but the fear of the math monster chased me constantly. . How to defeat that fear? You have to confront it from the very start, from the times tables and even before, to help our kids feel more in control, to show them that the math monster can purr and lick their hand. So I roped in my Dad, and together we looked at speed math methods and learning shortcuts, and collected a bunch of tricks that - minimize memorization and - maximize the sense of victory over the math monster ...when learning times tables, 2-digit multiplication, fractions, decimals, as well as addition and subtraction of larger numbers. This book covers math curricula found in the 2nd and 3rd grades - from times tables through decimals. In addition to speed math tricks, the book teaches a few classic math magic tricks, like 'reading your mind' to discover the secret number you came up with, or making a (seemingly) complex calculation in an instant. The book is colorful, with funny illustrations and captions to help retain every last drop of the precious kid attention, and to escape that scary math book look - the arctic white pages with mounting numbers - that so terrified me as a kid. It's a 'fun math' book designed to arm our kids with the magic of confidence and a bunch of speed math tricks on their early math journey.