About the Story:

May’s Hidden Algorithm is an illustrated story about the beauty and amazement of family mathematical knowledge. May and Ryan, both migrant children, take pride in the multiplication algorithm using fingers taught by their mothers at home. May learns from her mother that this finger multiplication method has been used among farmers back in her country. However, because the use of fingers has been regarded as a sign of “immaturity” in school mathematics, May and her mother hide this method at school. The story ends with May’s teacher prohibiting the use of body parts for mathematics, but this story intentionally remains unfinished. How would you continue the story?

The Process of Illustrating:

Miwa published findings from this study in the academic journal Educational Studies in Mathematics (Takeuchi, 2018). However, Miwa wanted to communicate with broader audiences – especially teachers and young learners – about the beauty of this embodied mathematics and also about the pain of being forced to hide non-normative knowing and being in the school context. As a visual artist/designer/researcher, Shima shared this dream and we collaborated to create this picture book. You will find the full process of illustrating May’s Algorithm in the last few pages of the book.

Shima’s design process started on paper, as she worked with Miwa and children in the story to discuss ideas for what the layout of the book can be. Shima then moved to work digitally to create the images you see in the illustrated book. The video below is a timelapse of Shima creating one page. This video shows the amount of detail, thought, and care that goes into every molecule of the picture book.

May’s Hidden Algorithm by Dadkhahfard, S. & Takeuchi, M.A. is licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0