Sideways stories from Wayside School Book

Want to help a young kid get on the right track with higher-level math? After they've fallen for the original Sideways Stories from Wayside School, they should give this book a shot. In short, the "reader" finds himself in Wayside School's bizarre math class, where equations all go like this:

elf
+ elf
fool

Words + words = words... the thing is, your job is to figure out what the numbers are. For starters, the "f" in the answer has to equal 1, because two single-digit numbers can't add up to more than 20. That makes "l" equal 2, "o" equal four, and "e" equal 7.

721
+ 721
1442

The storytelling mixed in with the lessons keeps things both goofy and easy to follow. By the end of the book, children will have learned the basic tenets of algebra without even realizing it.