Leo + Lea

by Monica Wesolowska, Kenard Pak (Illustrator)

Overview

A beautiful celebration of friendship, math, and art that honors different ways of seeing and being in the world.

"The mathematical wonder is creatively incorporated." - Kirkus Reviews

"It all adds up to an inventive, affecting story." - Publishers Weekly

One

boy

loves numbers.

Everywhere he looks

he sees things to count.

His classmates don't understand counting as he does.

A new girl loves patterns.

Could she be

a friend

for

Leo?

This beautiful friendship story, inspired by the Fibonacci sequence and cleverly constructed using its mathematical pattern, celebrates our differences, as well as how math connects us to one another.

Young readers will love counting the number of words per page and discovering how they echo the Fibonacci Sequence, a mathematical series in which each number is the sum of the previous two: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on to infinity! Text and art are masterfully conceived and constructed to reflect Leo's love of numbers. Even the color scheme in the striking illustrations follows a mathematical progression, bringing an underlying order and tranquility to the story. The mesmerizing symmetry of this fascinating and compulsively playable game of addition can also be found in the natural world and is an intriguing metaphor for the interconnectedness of all things.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781338874693
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Monica Wesolowska was inspired by a math-loving child to base the words of this story on a math pattern. Counting as she wrote, she followed the Fibonacci sequence into a story of friendship and learned how math connects us all. She is the author of the memoir Holding Silvan: A Brief Life, named a Best Book of 2013 by The Boston Globe and Library Journal. Her essays and short stories have appeared in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Literary Mama, The Carolina Quarterly, and Best New American Voices. She's a graduate of Reed College and teaches Creative Writing at the University of California Extension. Monica lives with her family in Berkeley, California. You can learn more about her work at monicawesolowska.com.
Kenard Pak used colors and shapes based on the Fibonacci sequence to create a visual story of a budding friendship that opens with a simple, airy room and blossoms into a full, lush landscape. He is the author and illustrator of Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn, and Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter, winner of the 2018 SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Illustration. He is also the illustrator of several picture books including Ten Ways to Hear Snow by Cathy Camper, Have You Heard the Nesting Bird? by Rita Gray, and The Fog by Kyo Maclear, which was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, their young daughter, and three cats. You can learn more about his work at pandagun.com.

Editorial Reviews

09/26/2022

Math and art combine for a portrait of blossoming friendship in this picture book infused with layers of Fibonacci numbers. East Asian–cued Leo counts his way through the school day: trees, steps, classmates. “ ‘Leo,’ his teacher says,/ ‘count softly, please.’ ” When a new classmate arrives, brown-skinned artist Lea, the pair connect over a shared love of patterns—a discovery made when Leo, during a moment of sensory overwhelm on the playground, notices Lea’s drawing. Wesolowska constructs the narrative so the quantity of words on each page follows the Fibonacci sequence: one (“Leo”), one (“Counting”), and so on, unfurling up to “fifty-five/ daisies” before spiraling in reverse past “Two/ friends.” Creators’ notes detail the sequence and describe the way Pak’s primarily digital renderings work in harmony, relying upon “Fibonacci color hexadecimal code sequences,” which frequently radiate pastel hues. It all adds up to an inventive, affecting story. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Leo + Lea:

"A warm portrayal of a friendship sparked by an unexpected connection . . . the mathematical wonder is creatively incorporated." — Kirkus Reviews

“Math and art combine for a portrait of blossoming friendship in this picture book infused with layers of Fibonacci numbers. . . . Pak’s primarily digital renderings work in harmony . . . [and] frequently radiate pastel hues. It all adds up to an inventive, affecting story.” — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2022-07-27
A child who likes to count meets a new classmate who likes to draw. What could they possibly have in common?

In this sparely told and illustrated episode, Leo, depicted with Asian features, walks to school counting: one flower, two trees, three squirrels, five steps, eight new classmates, 13 raindrops on the window, and so on. One day, he meets Lea, a dark-skinned classmate who sits next to him drawing. Later, upset by his inability to count all the daisies he sees outside (the loud playground noises overwhelm him), Leo takes off across grassy fields to a peaceful glade, where he finds Lea and excitedly discovers that she’s drawn 21 leaves and 13 flowers. “I love / patterns / Want to / see more?” she asks. As Wesolowska explains in her author’s note, these numbers—echoed in the changing number of words on the pages of her narrative—represent the Fibonacci sequence: a progression of sums beginning 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 that mathematically generate what is known as the golden ratio and also reflect patterns of leaves, flower petals, and other features often found in nature. Aside from framing a warm portrayal of a friendship sparked by an unexpected connection, the plot and the device don’t seem to have all that much to do with each other, but the two don’t get in each other’s way, either. For clearer and more direct views of the sequence and its inventor, steer younger readers to Sarah C. Campbell’s Growing Patterns (2010), with photographs by Richard P. Campbell, or Joseph D’Agnese’s Blockhead (2010), illustrated by John O’Brien. Leo and Lea’s classmates are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Maybe a little forced, but the mathematical wonder is creatively incorporated. (illustrator’s note) (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews