The Rajah's Rice: A Mathematical Folktale from India

by David Barry, Donna Perrone (Illustrator)

Exotic India is the setting for this cleverly devised, lushly illustrated folktale of compassionate trickery and surprising mathematics. Young Chandra, the Rajah's elephant caretaker, outwits the ruler using the power of multiplication and saves her village from suffering. Full color.

Harcourt School Publishers

Genres: Mathematics, India, Picture Books, Childrens, Cultural

32 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Lisa Vegan]

I recently read One Grain Of Rice A Mathematical Folktale by Demi and my Goodreads friend Krista told me of two other versions of the same tale, including this one.

I loved this one as much as the other. I think I like the illustrations and story somewhat more, and the math graph at the end is almost as nifty as the one in the other book.

This story is about a girl who tricks the selfish leader into providing enough rice and land for the people of India. The girl knows what the Rajah does not: that doubling grains of rice (not that many times) will produce a very large number.

This story is great fun and very educational, and could spark an interest in numbers for kids who are normally adverse to them.

I'm tempted to give both these books 5 stars; I love them so much.

[Jose Juan]

The setting of this Folk story takes place in a small village in India. The main character is a young girl by the name of Chandra, who is an elephant bather for the Rajah. The conflict in this story is that the Rajah's elephants get very sick and they can't figure out what the problem is. He needs his elephants because they are the ones who are responsible for transporting all the rice from the country to the rajah's palace. Many doctors come and try to cure the poor elephants but none of them can diagnose the problem. The elephant bather, Chandra, who knows the elephants very well asks the Rajah for permission to look at the elephants and see if she can cure them. She analysis them and diagnoses the problem. They all have an ear infection. She cleans their ears and the next day the elephants are well. The Rajah is very thankful and decides to reward Chandra with any gift she asks for. Instead of riches she asks for rice to be doubled on each chessboard square so that the villagers can be feed. When you do the math, 64 squares will give you India covered knee deep in rice. What a clever little girl. The Rajah could simply not grant her wish so he asks her "What can I give you to be released from my vow." Chandra asks the Rajah to give the people of the village the land they farm on and to only take the rice that he needs for him self.
At the end of the story there is chart that demonstrates how far something will increase when you double it over and over again. The illustrator, Perrone does a great job illustrating images as the story moves along. I would say her illustrations are expressionistic. This story can be used with a math lesson for children in the area of exponents/square.

[Robin]

Fantastic math tale! Love it for a multiplication readaloud.

[Brittany]

This is a great story about a peasant who helps the rajah and is awarded one wish. The wish is to fill a chessboard with one grain of rice on the first day, and doubling the grains of rice until the end of the board. So the first square would have one grain and the second square would have two and then four and then sixteen and so on. The moral of the story was that there wouldn't be enough room to fit all the rice that this would give the peasant.
This is a great story. I remember reading this as a girl and thinking about the math. I believe we did a math lesson with this story and it is something I would love to do with my students one day. Great story. Pictures are only okay but the story is fantastic!

[Amy Pardee]

Tale about a girl who works for the Rajah, and how she recovers all the people's rice. Multicultural

[Laura]

I loved this book. It was such a good moral to the story about how the Rajah was humbled and didn't take all the rice anymore.

-Sharing
-Math

[Ali]

This is about a girl who takes care of elephants and ends up giving all of India more rice.

[Amy Pardee]

Cool story of a girl who is smart enough to gain all the rice back for her country. Multicultural

[Robert Tajimaroa]

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[Gps]

This is a great book for young girls to show that math is a useful skill.