I know some of you haven’t had many book covers called so far and I just wanted to say, don’t get discouraged! I’m drawing from a pool of 85 titles and with 24 book covers on each card that means with the first title drawn there was a 28% chance it would be one of yours. With every match you don’t make for your card, your probability of getting the next match actually goes up. For example, we’ve had 13 titles called and removed from the pool now. So we’re working with 72 books. If you still have 24 books on your card looking for a match, there’s a 33% chance the next title will be a match for you. But if you already have 4 titles crossed off your card, leaving you with only 20 books looking for a match, that means you have a 28% chance the next title will be a match for you. (And if you’ve made more than 4 matches already, your chances would be even less.)

Basically, if you have 3 to 4 books crossed off your card right now, you’re right on target with the gods of probability. If you have less than 3 covers, don’t dispair. You’ve been on an unlucky run, and I would guess at any moment that will turn around.

(The probability of your book cover matches also falling in a sequential Bingo order is beyond the mathematical scope my brain can handle. But if any of you would find it interesting to know those odds, let me know and I’ll see if I can arrange a guest post with a math/probability expert.)

Bingo Book #13 is the beautiful Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian written by Margarit Engle and illustrated by Julie Paschkis. Summer Birds is a picture book biography, published in April of this year, about Maria Sibylla Merian, a 17th-century naturalist who carefully observed the metamorphosis of the butterfly and documented it through her paintings to disprove centuries of scientific belief that butterflies were creatures of the devil and originated from mud. Booklist gave it a starred review and said “Joyous and inspiring, this beautiful introduction to a passionate young scientist who defied grown-ups and changed history will spark children’s own fascination with the natural world and its everyday dramas.” Julie shared her creative space with us on April 26.