Maybe Zero Is Not to Blame?

Irina Tokmakova wrote several educational fairy-tale novellas for preschool and primary school children. These fun books teach kids the letters of the Russian and English alphabets, the rules of grammar, numbers, and mathematical symbols in an engaging way.

In the story “MAYBE ZERO ISN’T TO BLAME?”, first-graders Alya and her friend Antoshka go into a math textbook to retrieve a little soldier infantryman that was kidnapped from a problem statement. If the kids don’t set the problem right, all of “Class 1B” will face trouble: the power will go to the goose-duos, and they’ll graze in their notebooks.

Could it really be that Zero canceled out the infantryman? Or did the evil Minus take him away?..