How many guinea pigs can fit on a plane?

"If each guinea pig sits on its own seat, then it just depends on how many seats are on the plane," says Laura Overdeck. It's a different matter if you're squishing them in as tightly as they can fit. And the fact is, she says, "guinea pigs are happiest when they're together with friends." She would know; she wrote the book, How Many Guinea Pigs can Fit on a Plane?

ages 7-11; Feiwel & Friends, 2017

The math gets a bit more complex and involves cubic space and how tightly you pack them. But for the sake of argument, let's go with 472,500.

Guinea pigs aren't the only critter calculations in the book. Overdeck demonstrates how one can compute the total number of dogs in the world - spiders, too - and whether hopping bunnies move faster than running people.

And that's just the Animal chapter. There's a chapter about math for your mouth (it includes chocolate), your life in numbers, math used to calculate things in nature, and tips for mental math.

But first, before the first problem is served, Overdeck treats us to a bite of pie pi. That's so we can figure out cool things like how much wrapping paper you'd need to cover a basketball, and how much space is inside that basketball. A fun, fun book brought to us by the mistress of the Bedtime Math series (see reviews here and here - and click on the Bedtime Math button over in the right column for today's problems!)

ages 8-12; Nat. Geo Kids, 2017

You can never have too many math games, so here's another book filled with games, puzzles, and information about your brain. Brain Bogglers starts with a page of puzzles to determine what "kind of genius" you are. Because there are different kinds.

Each chapter focuses on some aspect of how your brain works, and includes puzzles to challenge you. For example, how does your brain translate reflected light into images? And does it ever trick you?

Sometimes our body tricks our brain. Sometimes we know stuff that we don't know we know. (I know- confusing, right?) And sometimes we don't get top score because other animals are so much ... smarter?

Thank goodness the answers are at the back of the book!

Today we're joining the STEM Friday roundup. Review copies from the publishers.