Sunday 25 March 2012

Usborne Adventures in Puzzle World

I love getting book recommendations from those who love children's books. Adventures in Puzzle World was a particularly successful recommendation from a very dear friend who is about as good at resisting buying books as I am. A case in point: a couple of weeks ago we went into Waterstones, to spend A's birthday voucher. We came out with books for all 5 of the children we had with us, even though she had only come in "for a look".

I bought Puzzle World for C's birthday a few weeks ago, and he has taken it to bed every evening, and spends a very satisfying half hour working through the puzzles. It's an omnibus of all of the Young Puzzle books published by Usborne. Every section, therefore, has a different subject. C's favourite is the final chapter which is set under the sea. The puzzles are relatively straight-forward, and the text is quite easy to read. I would say the book is most suitable for 5-7 year olds. A had a brief look, but prefers the versions aimed at older children.

I absolutely love watching C with this book: serious expression on his face, glasses falling to the edge of his nose, big heavy hardback on his lap, tracing his finger under the words. Invariably, if he doesn't find the answer relatively quickly, he turns to the answer page at the back. I asked him why he did this and he said "What's the point in spending ages finding the answer, when you can just find it at the back?" Fair enough. I hope he doesn't carry this strategy through into the future, as he might be in for a bit of a shock when the answers to his GCSE papers are not helpfully set out by page number in the back of the question booklet...

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