This is a perfect book. I know, I know…I love everything I write about, but this is really good. It’s also 13 years old and perfectly timely, even though it was a contemporary book at the time. The only thing that dated it was the cover, and now it’s got this cool new one!

What I love about Bauer’s books is that she packs them with all this information that just isn’t that common. In this case, pool. But she’s also worked a ton of mathematics into this story and it’s FUN! If I were a kid, I would think, “Wow. Math might be kind of interesting after all.” And she packed in some history, physics, a bit about theatre, some blues guitar, and a pig! I just love how she takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. I told my husband, “I wish I could write like Joan Bauer.” and he said, “Well, you can’t. You have to write like you.” I know he’s right, but I still updated my facebook status to say: If I didn’t write like me, I’d want to write like Joan Bauer.