Review: Probably good for kids
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 9, 2012
A puzzle book for the Kindle is a fantastic idea, and I was happy to be offered a copy of this one to review. And it is a well-designed book, with a nice pictorial index and handy interactive navigation between puzzles and answers (which is intuitive and well integrated into the book).There are several similar puzzles of each type, which starts to feel repetitive after a while, although it usually isn't a problem per se. However, for some types it is the case that once you've solved one (or looked up the answer), you now know the 'trick' which will enable solving later ones instantly.Conversely, for some of the more obscure problems (such as calculating relative volumes of part-circles, or comparing the lengths of curved lines), there was no information provided with the solution concerning how to calculate the right answer.Many of the puzzles involve counting and basic calculations; when I started skipping puzzles that were basically just "count these objects" I found I was suddenly getting through the book very quickly. Other puzzle types include finding the odd-one-out from a set, identifying patterns, and spatial awareness.I think this would be good for keeping kids entertained on a long journey and instilling some basic arithmetic along the way, but personally I found I was bouncing between the boringly trivial and maddeningly obscure, with very little pure logic in the middle.