15 Best Picture Books for Teaching Multiplication

Teaching children multiplication? Check out this list of the best multiplication picture books to help children learn to understand and apply multiplication strategies such as skip counting, making arrays and repeated addition.

Picture books are a fabulous tool for engaging children with mathematical concepts. By capturing a child’s imagination, picture book stories make the process of learning about abstract math concepts, such as learning multiplication strategies,  more interesting, relevant and meaningful.

And if you are looking to continue the engaged learning, pair your multiplication books with a game or two from our 150+ page printable multiplication games pack.

Multiplication Picture Books

Each book on our Multiplication Picture Books list is linked to an Amazon page where you can find reviews and age recommendations for those titles you are not personally familiar with.

Too Many Pigs in the Pool by Wendy Hinote Lanier A delightful story that will make you laugh out loud about a man who enjoys his swimming pool but would like to share it with someone. A neighbor arrives with bean dip and a pet pig before the story escalates into a humorous tale of TOO many pigs in the pool that is also a fabulous tool for introducing children to doubling numbers. Available: Amazon

Double Puppy Trouble by Danica McKellar When Moxie finds a magic stick that can double anything, she doesn’t hesitate to use it! But when the button gets stuck, she may start to realize that less really is more! Teach the power of doubling through this playful puppy romp! Available: Amazon

One Hundred Hungry Ants by Elinor J Pinczes In rhymed verse one hundred hungry ants hurry to sample the delights of a picnic, but marching in single file seems too slow for 100 empty tummies. The smallest ant of all suggests they travel in formations that represent different ways of arranging 100, providing a useful too for discussion of arrays. Available: Amazon

Amanda Bean’s Amazing Dream by Cindy Neuschwander Amanda Bean is a counting machine but is there a quicker way to work out how many? A story written to explicitly teach the purpose of multiplication and a great tool for exploring repeated addition and arrays as multiplication strategies. The illustrations provide a wealth of multiplication problem solving opportunity too! Available: Amazon

Each Orange Had 8 Slices by Paul Giganti A book of multiplication problems told within real life scenarios, each page provides an opportunity to put the multiplication strategies you are learning to use to solve the questions posed. Available: Amazon

A Place for Zero by Angeline Sparagna LoPresti Zero is lonely in Digitaria. He can’t play Addemup with the other numbers because he simply has nothing to add! All the other numbers seem to belong and they all have a place, but not Zero. Until he discovers multiplication – could he have a place there? Available: Amazon

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The Best of Times by Gregory Tang Helpful strategies for solving multiplication problems from one to ten are included within engaging rhymes. Available: Amazon

Eggs and Legs: Counting by Twos by Michael Dahl  This great series for introducing or reinforcing skip counting as a multiplication strategy, starts with Eggs and Legs – a fun and whimsical introduction to counting by twos as Mrs Hen searches the farmyard for her missing eggs! Available: Amazon

Lots of Ladybugs: Counting by Fives by Michael Dahl With five spots on the wings of each ladybug, counting by fives has never been so delightful! Available: Amazon

Toasty Toes: Counting by Tens by Michael Dahl Toes relaxing on the beach in the sun become a fun tool for counting by tens in this simple skip counting book. Available: Amazon

Two Ways to Count to Ten: A Liberian Folk Tale When all of the animals compete to become the new King of the Jungle, it might not be the strongest who wins, but the cleverest! Which clever animal uses skip counting to win the contest? Available: Amazon

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2×2=Boo! A Set of Spooky Multiplication Stories by Loreen Leedy Six cute, cartoony stories and spooky illustrations teach young readers how to multiply from 0 to 5 in a memorable, kid-friendly way. Available: Amazon

Multiply on the Fly by Suzanne Slade Teaching multiplication in a way that will make children bug you for more, Multiply on the Fly invites readers to multiply with the help of a variety of insects, including daring dragonflies and hungry honeybees. Available: Amazon

Terrible Times Tables by Michelle Markel Inspired by a Victorian era math primer and set in a school based setting, humorous poetry and illustrations that every school kid can relate to act as memorable mnemonic devices that help kids remember multiplication facts. Available: Amazon

The Times Machine by Danica McKellar The Times Machine takes children on a journey using short stories, silly rhymes and more to memorize multiplication facts. Helps break down the rules of multiplication and to translate many of the multiplication and division methods taught in today’s classrooms. Available: Amazon

Click through for 150+ pages of print and play times tables games.

For more books exploring math concepts, be sure to check out the following book lists;