Rhyming text and illustrations present a variety of math problems.

The reader is asked to perform a series of mathematical operations integrated into the story of a lazy man who plants magic seeds and reaps an increasingly abundant harvest.

Loosely based on Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing," twelve-year-olds Trish and Ben should be automatic friends because they both play baseball on a Little League team in Comity, Massachusetts, and they both love solving math puzzles, but obstacles stand in their way.

Ace Detective Captain Coconut, who proclaims he can solve any mystery large or small, is called in to investigate the case of the missing bananas. He soon finds himself on a slippery trail of peels and missing numbers.