Mathematics textbook publishers often include recommended tradebooks to be used in mathematics instruction. Teachers, however, remain unaware of the criteria used by the publishers when making their recommendations. Using Schiro's (1997) standards for assessing mathematics in children's literature, this inquiry assessed the quality of 127 tradebook recommendations of three second-grade mathematics textbook publishers. It was found that the overall literary quality of the set of tradebooks was much higher than the overall mathematical quality. The results indicate that teachers play an important role in assessing the quality of the children's literature they use in their classroom. Schiro's (1997) instrument provides a valuable tool to help teachers carefully focus on criteria that measure a tradebook's potential effectiveness for teaching mathematics.