If there's one question that many parents would rather not hear when Sophia or Aiden gets home from school, it's, "Mom, can you help me with my algebra homework?"

And nowadays that question gets asked by younger and younger children because algebraic thinking has been inserted into the math curriculum as early as 5th grade, sometimes even in 4th grade!

So what helps parents recall algebra and also helps students learn it in a friendly way? The Algebra Survival Guide, now updated in its Second Edition.

Following on the success of the award-winning First Edition book and written by teacher/tutor Josh Rappaport, the Second Edition Guide offers time-tested advice for understanding the key areas of this gateway math subject.

The new Algebra Survival Guide features a unique Q&A format so students hear their own questions echoed in the text. The book's answers, written in the voice of a friendly tutor, provide conversational responses, along with step-by-step instructions in English right next to the math steps.

Each page is a one-page mini-lesson so students can focus without feeling overwhelmed. Following each lesson is a short set of practice problems, offering students instant feedback. At the end of each section, chapter tests provide comprehensive checks on understanding.

Since word problems are often the highest "hurdle" of algebra, the Second Edition contains a new 62-page chapter on advanced word problems. This chapter provides detailed strategies for setting up and solving word problems on such dastardly areas as rate, time and distance, work performed, mixture formulas, and even those crazy problems about Joe being three years older than four times Jane's age 10 years in the future.

In its twelve content chapters the 352-page Second Edition covers all key areas of PreAlgebra and Algebra 1: Algebraic Properties, Sets of Numbers, Positive and Negative Numbers, Order of Operations, Absolute Value, Exponents, Radicals, Factoring, Cancelling, Solving Equations, the Coordinate Plane, and Word Problems.

As a major bonus, the Guide buzzes with lively illustrations by award-winning artist Sally Blakemore. Ms. Blakemore's cartoons not only provide comic relief, they also offer a visual way to grasp algebra's challenging abstractions. (Example: to illustrate the Reflexive Property of x = x, a cartoon shows a sad 'x' gazing at itself in the mirror while suffering a 'bad hair day.') With all of these features, the Second Edition Algebra Survival Guide appeals equally to homeschoolers, students, parents, teachers, tutors and adult students striving to recall the math they learned a decade or so ago.

The Second Edition aligns with the Common Core State Standards for Math, so it's up-to-date for today's teachers.

Loaded with thorough explanations, practice problems and answers, the new Algebra Survival Guide gives anyone and everyone the needed boost for learning or teaching the timeless and critical subject of algebra.

Josh Rappaport is the author of the Parents' Choice award-winning Algebra Survival Guide, the Algebra Survival Workbook and PreAlgebra Blastoff. Josh is co-author with Trudy Bortz of the Card Game Roundup books. Josh has taught middle school and high school, and for the last 25 years has been president of the Now I Get It! Learning Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he teaches and tutors children of all ages. Josh and his wife Kathy also coach students worldwide to success on the SAT and ACT college entrance exams. Sally Blakemore, an award winning paper-engineer and book designer www.artyprojects.com, has illustrated for Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Oppenheimer Funds; and books, for Singing Turtle Press, Perseus Press, Western National Parks Press, Gibbs Smith Books, North Carolina Press, Michigan Press, and Texas Press, to name a few. She lives in Santa Fe, NM.