Dartmouth Alum Kara Colley is Keeping Math Joyful with New Children's Book

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Illustrated cover of 'My Hundred Friends'

Kara thinks about math. A lot. She earned a BA in physics from Dartmouth and an MA in math education from Columbia University. For 19 years Kara taught math to middle school, high school, and community college students around the country and the world. For the past three years she has freelanced as a math curriculum writer out of her home in Portland, Oregon. 

Now, Kara is bringing math to a much younger crowd. Her first children's book, My Hundred Friends, will be published by Natural Math in the fall of 2026. Designed for children ages 7-11, the book uses adorable illustrated characters to describe Kara's friendship with numbers 1-100.  Using color-coordinated patterns, the characters introduce the topics of factors, multiples, and primes. "My Hundred Friends appeals to kids who enjoy math exploration as a hobby, and to kids who might need help relating better to math concepts" Kara explains.

Kara's book is as joyfully unique as she is, and very much a product of her lived experiences. 

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Left to right: Kara's brother, mom, Sky Colley '97, and Kara (Relyea) Colley '98 at Kara's graduation from Dartmouth in 1998.

Reflecting on her physics career at Dartmouth, Kara recalls "I have a great fondness for former Professor Jay Lawrence. I have a clear memory of sitting with him and another student in the hallway while he patiently explained relativity". After early morning physics classes, Kara remembers heading to Kresge library to take a nap in one of their blue rectangular chairs. "I didn't use an alarm. I just poked my head up and looked at the clock every now and again. I loved it. It was one of my favorite things" she says.

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Left to right: Kara Colley '98 and Christy Utter '98, staying at a Dartmouth cabin in the winter term of their senior year.

Dartmouth's foreign study program sparked the beginning of a wandering life path after graduation. "Traveling to Kenya on the FSP opened my eyes to how differently people live in different countries" Kara says. For the nine years after graduation, Kara and her husband Sky lived and worked in the Marshall islands, New York, England, and Mexico. Kara primarily taught math, but her work was punctuated with epic bike trips, a Master's degree, and work-stays. Kara and Sky moved to Portland, Oregon in 2007 and have lived there since.  

After teaching math at a community college in Portland for 14 years, Kara began working as a math curriculum writer. First, she created 4th grade math lessons and worksheets for MIND education. It was here that she developed an appreciation for how rich and deep elementary school math could be. Kara now writes SAT and ACT math lessons and test questions for Prep Scholar. She takes great care of the math drawings that accompany her explanations. "That is actually my favorite part of the job," Kara says.   

Kara writes freelance, which allows her time to work on projects, like My Hundred Friends.

After thinking fondly about the number 48 a week before my 48th birthday, it struck me that I am friends with the numbers. And I don't mean that poetically. When I think about a particular number, it warms my heart and brings a smile to my face. From telling people over the years that I am a math teacher and seeing the look of pain on their face, I know that many people are not friends with the numbers. And so it struck me – maybe I could write a book about this. I grabbed a notebook and started writing out a first draft of the story that same week.

- Kara Colley '98

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An early draft from Kara's book that she gave to Coley to illustrate.

The book is filled with adorable number-characters that are excited whenever they see themselves as factors later in the book. One green little number-character gets up to more antics than the rest. Numbers are only allowed on pages where they are a factor, but 7 tries to visit many more pages than where he is welcome. "Ha! I do like 7. He's a cheeky little guy, but also very endearing." Kara says. 

Kara secured several important collaborations for producing My Hundred Friends. Artist Coley Nielsen is illustrating the book. "Collaborating with Coley has been so amazing. After getting married and having kids, it is probably the most thrilling event in my life. I am an ideas person. I live in my head. And so seeing my ideas come to life on paper, as drawn by a professional illustrator, I just love it. It has been deeply, deeply satisfying" Kara says.

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The number 12 page in My Hundred Friends, illustrated by Coley Nielsen. Do you see the number 7? At least 5 asked to join!

The book will be published with Natural Math, a small company that is well respected in the math education community. Natural Math publishes under a creative commons license, allowing people all over the world to translate it. The book will be distributed by the American Mathematical Society. My Hundred Friends has been heavily tested with elementary kids. You can read a blog post Kara wrote about this process with Montessori students here. 

"I would love for my book to get in the hands of parents with young children or in the hands of elementary school teachers. My Hundred Friends is not a math textbook, but I think it could be a great book to have in the reading corner of 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade classrooms", Kara notes, "My hope would be that children who don't have a great relationship with math might find something cozy or friendly in the book and connect with numbers in some way. And I hope that people who already like math will find it satisfying too".  

You can learn more about the book project on Natural Math's webpage for My Hundred Friends. You can view more of Coley Nielsen's work on her website. You can learn more about Kara Colley and her projects on her website, or learn about the process test-reading My Hundred Friends with children in Kara's blog post.