This Sunday is Pi Day. March 14th (3/14 get it? 3.14 is the ratio of circumference to the diameter of a circle). I am a little geeky about this number. (Yes, I have been known to shout out “Pi Time” at 3:14 in the afternoon.) And I secretly want to get this Pi dish, even though I do not bake.

Since I seem to find the number Pi in many different things, it reminds me of Jon Scieszka’s "Math Curse."

Jon Scieszka is one of those authors that just cracks me up! I like how he blends humor with learning with this story. In "Math Curse," the female character, who narrates the story, thinks she gets cursed by her math teacher Mrs. Fibonacci.

“On Monday in math class, Mrs. Fibonacci says, ‘ You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem.’ On Tuesday I start having problems.”

The narrator starts to notice math everywhere. Even just trying to get up involves a little algebra as she tries figure what time she needs to get up in order to have enough time to get ready before the school bus arrives. As the narrator’s day goes on, the math problems get more and more complicated with interpreting charts, figuring out fractions at lunch, adding words together to get compound words in English and stats in Phys. Ed. The math curse follows her home as she works out logic problems with her parents at the dinner table and dreams about abstract numbers.

This story is chuck full of real math problems that can actually be worked out! The back cover is more than just a clever illustration - it has the answers.

Another picture book about math, one that incorporates Pi, is "Sir Cumference & the Dragon of Pi" by Cindy Neuschwander. This book is more for upper elementary and middle school readers. In this story, the knight Sir Cumference is turned into a dragon after drinking a potion. It is up to his son, Radius, to find the magic number that will break the potion’s spell on Sir Cumference. Of course the magic number is Pi! This story explores math concepts like geometry symmetry, circumference, the number Pi and diameter.

For older readers, there is David Blatner’s "Joy of Pi." This fun little book does not have to be read from cover to cover. Each page is covered with very tiny print that are the first MILLION digits of Pi. Along with this long number, there are tidbits about the history of Pi, fascinating facts, poems, cartoons and a mnemonic device to help learn the many digits of the number Pi.

So curl up with a good math book, appreciate all the math around you, and don't forget to yell "Pi Time" at 3:14pm!

Lisa Bankey is a parent, an Enrichment Facilitator for the Ann Arbor Public Schools and a librarian-in-training who blogs about Children’s Literature for AnnArbor.com. Lisa can be reached at lisabookblog@gmail.com.