This exuberant picture book by Katherine Hannigan, the acclaimed and bestselling author of Ida B, is about math concepts, friendship, and imaginative play, and is told entirely in equations!

A young girl and her dog spend the day playing in her backyard, where with her imagination--and a few helpful props--anything can happen. What do you get when you combine dirt and water? Mud! What do you get when you take a sheet, a flowerpot, and a stick and make a costume? You transform yourself into Her Majesty, the queen! A cape and a strong breeze turn the treehouse into an airplane. A sheet, a stick, and a pair of well-placed cat's ears turn the girl into a pirate! At least until mutiny leaves her alone in her kiddie pool . . . surrounded by sharks! Cheerful and action-packed illustrations and a combination of comic-like panels, conversation bubbles, sound effects, and full-page illustrations make Dirt + Water = Mud particularly appealing for new readers.

This book has been graded for interest at 4+ years.

There are 40 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2016 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc .

Katherine Hannigan was raised in New York State and earned degrees in education, mathematics and art. She lives in northeast Iowa, which provided much of the inspiration for this book. "Ida B came to be," she says, "because of my move to the Midwest. Hers is the life I would have chosen, if I could have. "