World Maths Day (26th March)

World Maths Day on 26 March is a great chance to show that maths isn’t just about worksheets - it can start with a story.

Many children feel anxious about maths, but will happily explore numbers, patterns and problem solving when they meet them in the pages of a good book. It’s an often overlooked fact that strong reading skills support maths attainment, from helping to understand word problems to grasping mathematical vocabulary and following multi-step reasoning.

At Pageticker, we’ve pulled together a curated list of maths‑themed reads for primary children – from picture books about counting and shapes to chapter books that weave puzzles and logical thinking into the plot. These are all titles that can be shared at home or in class to build number confidence in a gentle, enjoyable way.

Here are 10 lovely maths‑friendly stories for Nursery and Reception (age 2–5):

1. Mouse Count – Ellen Stoll Walsh

   

   • A snake counts mice into a jar and the mice have to think their way out; great for counting up and back and a very light “problem” to solve.​
   

2. Ten Black Dots – Donald Crews

   

   • Shows how different pictures can be made from 1–10 black dots, perfect for early counting and talking about “how many altogether”.​
   

3. One to Ten and Back Again – Sue Heap

   

   • A gentle rhyming book that counts up to ten and back again, supporting number order and the idea of counting backwards.​
   

4. Anno’s Counting Book – Mitsumasa Anno

   

   • Almost wordless; children explore a landscape that grows from 1 to 12, ideal for spotting and counting objects in a calm, open‑ended way.​
   

5. One Gorilla: A Counting Book – Anthony Browne

   

   • Beautiful, realistic animal illustrations, counting from 1 to 10, good for focusing on quantity rather than just numerals.​

   
   

6. Walter’s Wonderful Web – Tim Hopgood

   

   • A spider experiments with different shaped webs (triangles, squares, circles) to make a “wonderful web”, lovely for 2D shape names and resilience.​

   
   

7. Color Zoo – Lois Ehlert

   

   • Die‑cut pages reveal animals made from overlapping shapes; children guess the animal and talk about which shapes they see.​

   
   

8. Stack the Cats – Susie Ghahremani

   

   • Cats are stacked in different groupings (2, 3, etc.), introducing comparison, simple addition and “how can we arrange them?” problems.​

   
   

9. How to Count to ONE – Caspar Salmon & Matt Hunt

   

   • A bossy narrator insists you only ever count to “one”; children delight in “breaking the rule”, building confidence in counting beyond one.​

   
   

10. One Fox: A Counting Book Thriller – Kate Read

    

    • A slightly dramatic but age‑appropriate farmyard story counting 1–10 with a fox and hens, great for subitising and talking about “what might happen next?”.​

Here are 10 strong story-style books that work well for KS1 to explore maths, numbers and problem solving (Reception–Y2):

1. The Doorbell Rang – Pat Hutchins

   

   • Lovely for equal sharing and division as more children arrive and the cookies keep getting split again.​

   
   

2. Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons – Eric Litwin

   

   • Repeated subtraction as buttons pop off his shirt; supports early number sentences like “4 − 1 = 3”.

   
   

3. Ten Apples Up On Top – Dr. Seuss

   

   • Counting to 10, comparing “who has more/less”, and simple addition as apples are stacked.​

   
   

4. 365 Penguins – Jean-Luc Fromental

   

   • Brilliant for place value, large numbers and problem solving as a family receives one penguin every day for a year.

   
   

5. One Ted Falls Out of Bed – Julia Donaldson

   

   • Gentle bedtime adventure with numbers 1–10 woven into the storyline, good for ordering and counting forwards/backwards.​

   
   

6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle

   

   • Days of the week, counting items of food, simple addition and discussion of patterns.​

   
   

7. Monster Math – Anne Miranda

   

   • Counting in tens to 50 and some subtraction, all within a lively monster party context.​

   
   

8. Spinderella – Julia Donaldson

   

   • Focus on counting, grouping and “how many legs” with spiders; great for linking to times tables later on.​

   
   

9. What Do You Do With a Problem? – Kobi Yamada

   

   • Not explicitly about numbers, but excellent for growth mindset around tackling tricky problems.​

   
   

10. Stuck – Oliver Jeffers

    

    • Very funny escalating problem; ideal for talking about planning, trying different strategies and cause and effect.

Here are 10 engaging books for KS2 (Y3–Y6) that weave in maths, numbers or problem‑solving in a story-led way:

1. Grandpa’s Quilt – Betsy Franco

   

   • Children keep rearranging quilt pieces so Grandpa is fully covered, perfect for area, perimeter and shape reasoning.

   
   

2. 365 Penguins – Jean‑Luc Fromental

   

   • A penguin arrives every day for a year; great for big numbers, multiplication, division and problem solving about space and organisation.

   
   

3. The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure – Hans Magnus Enzensberger

   

   • A boy meets a mischievous “number devil” in his dreams and explores primes, factorials and more in story form, ideal for confident upper KS2 readers.​

   
   

4. That’s Mathematics – Chris Smith

   

   • Picture‑book style, showing how maths appears in music, sport, cooking and everyday life, good for dispelling “I’ll never use this” myths.​

   
   

5. Einstein, The Girl Who Hated Maths – John Agard

   

   • Poems and short episodes about a girl who dislikes maths but finds it popping up everywhere, nice for discussion about attitudes and usefulness.​

6. What Do You Do With a Problem? – Kobi Yamada

   

   • A child gradually learns to face problems rather than avoid them, perfect for linking perseverance to mathematical problem‑solving.

   
   

7. Rosie Revere, Engineer – Andrea Beaty

   

   • Design, test, fail, improve; excellent for STEM projects and relating maths to measuring, planning and evaluating designs.

   
   

8. The Most Magnificent Thing – Ashley Spires

   

   • A girl keeps redesigning her “magnificent thing”, ideal for talking about trial and error, refinement and not giving up on hard problems.

9. The Mysterious Benedict Society – Trenton Lee Stewart

   

   • A team of children solve riddles, codes and logic puzzles; great for more advanced readers who enjoy reasoning and strategy.​

   
   

10. Encyclopedia Brown series – Donald J. Sobol

    

    • Short mystery cases that can be solved by spotting a logical inconsistency, brilliant for inference and deductive thinking in bite‑size chunks.​