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Review - The Phantom X - Kjartan Poskitt

X marks the spot - and on the whole, The Phantom X hits the spot. In case you haven't guessed (clue - this is in the Murderous Maths series), the X in question is the unknown in algebra, and Kjartan Poskitt makes tracking it down positively entertaining.

Traditionally algebra is a subject that bounces off many younger readers - it just looks frightening, and cries out for the sort of face lift that this book gives it.

A lot of time is spent on quadratics, which is fair enough, introducing "the panic button" which is the quadratic formula, to haul out when all else fails. Perhaps some of the examples could have been a little more user-friendly - one involves calculating expenses for dubious councillors - but there's plenty of practice without pain. There's some algebra-based mathematical tricks in the middle of the book for light relief and a shallow but useful introduction to plotting out equations on a coordinate system, simultaneous equations and more. As usual with the Poskitt books they're slightly less illustrated than some of the Horrible Science equivalents, but still Philip Reeves energetic cartoons do the job nicely.

The only slight sadness is that, on the whole the book sticks to conventional approaches. This makes it easier for it to integrate with school work, but misses out on a couple of opportunities. One would be to play on the similarity between algebra and computer programming. By making an equation a program to crunch numbers, it can be pulled apart in a way that may be more comprehensible to the computer generation (part of the equation in brackets, for instance, becomes a function in the programming sense (a subroutine for older readers)). This approach also inspires a second possibility. One of the most off-putting aspects of algebra is the impenetrable look of all those Xs and Ys. But think of them as variables in a program and it's actually bad programming to use single letters. Instead of saying q+15a, as the book does at one point, a good programmer would say quiver+15arrows - later on you can switch to letters, but it's worth pointing out that there's no logical reason for using single letters, it's just convention and reflecting a time when they couldn't cut and paste.

However, given the presumably required traditional approach, Poskitt does a good job and makes this an excellent part of the series.

Only in paperback

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

Kid's review to follow...

* Our age range recommendation is an estimated guide, but individual readers outside the range could still enjoy the book!

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