Book Description
Who knew that math could be so cool? Crammed with games, puzzles, and trivia, The Everything® Kids' Math Puzzles Book puts the fun back into playing with numbers!

Inside, you'll be able to:
·Decode hidden messages using Roman numerals
·Connect the dots using simple addition and subtraction
·Learn to create magic number squares
·Use division to answer musical riddles
·Match the profession to numerical license plates

If you have any fear of math—or are just tired of sitting in a classroom—The Everything® Kids' Math Puzzles Book provides hours of entertainment. You'll get so caught up in the activities you won't even know you're learning! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Everything Kids' Math Puzzles Book
A fun-filled book.Lots of varied puzzles, which involves not only the reader, but those around her. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (9)

Good for warming up your brain.
Nice collection of puzzles with varying difficulties, which do not require any special knowledge of mathematics.

The best compilation from Martin Gardner's Scientific American mathematical games column
"My best mathematical and logic puzzles" presents 70 of the best of the brain teaser that Martin Gardner published over a period of 25 years in his Mathematical games column at Scientific American. It some cases references to new developments related with specific puzzles have been added.

Martin Gardner was always especially careful to present in his American Scientific column only new and unfamiliar puzzles that have not been included in classic collections before. Now you can challenge your solving skills and rattle your ego with a compilation of his best mind-benders.

Here is an example of what you can find inside this book (31. The absent-minded teller}:

"An absent-minded bank teller switched the dollars and cents whenhe cashed a check for Mr. Brown, giving him dollars instead of cents, and cents instead of dollars. After buying a five-cent newspaper, Mr. Brown discovered that he had left exactly twice as much as his original check. What was the amount of the check?"

One of the best things about Martin Gardner books is that a carefully explained solution follows each problem, this way you learn and add new abilities to your problem solving skills, that will sure be helpful in solving real life problems, while entertaining yourself with a good and challenging reading.

The best of one of the best
Martin Gardner is the grand old man of puzzles and recreational mathematics. I recommend this book for intermediary and advanced puzzle enthusiasts - beginners might find some of these too challenging.

Intermediary puzzlists will find the pleasures of often working at the upper edge of their skills. The solutions at the end of the book are complete enough so that even those who didn't get it right the first time will get aha insights.

The book is well worth its price even for puzzle enthusiasts. Even I knew many of the puzzles beforehand - classics indeed - but the notes in the solutions often add a twist, a clever solution or a human interest point of view.

The age recommendation of amazon.com - 4-8 years - is probably either an insider joke or a typo. I'd recommend this book to people between 14-80 years of age, and even over.

Puzzles requiring intermediate mathematical skills
Marvelous book. I found it better than many books but my friends, who were not that conversant with intermediate mathematics did not like it much. Though this book doesn't require a knowledge of calculus, people who have this level might appreciate the book more. But it has more to do with mathematical 'thinking' rather than mathematics itself.

So get this one if you are good at mathematical thinking and want to challenge yourself. If you are weak in math and would rather read puzzles that require only logic, cleverness, and lateral thinking only, this may not be the one for you.

A Question
I just had to question this - the book is rated at a reading level for 4 - 8 year olds, but some of the reviewers mention going on technicalinterviews and keeping track of columns in Scientific America over a numberof years? ... Read more

Book Description
Puzzle lovers of every persuasion, prepare to be mystified and wonderously maddened! These 51 original puzzles by Barry R. Clarke, puzzle columnist for the Daily Telegraph (UK), present challenges ranging from moderate to difficult and span a terrific range of clever conundrums : word puzzles, complex crosswords, and math and logic puzzles.

The first section, Popular Puzzles, calls for a moderate amount of effort and imagination. It features complex crosswords in which cryptic clues must be solved in sequence and the solutions fitted together on the grid. Teaser Tales, the following section, contains longer puzzles in the form of amusing stories with a series of clues that must be solved to provide a single solution at the end.

The final section represents the Mount Everest of the collection, the Advanced Puzzles. Designed to stretch the mental muscles, these puzzles are more mathematical than their predecessors, but even the most difficult ones require no greater knowledge than high school algebra. Most of the puzzles include hints, and solutions are provided for all (no peeking!). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

No complaints but suggestion!
The delivery time was great. The description could have been more specific - I was looking for logic puzzles of a certain type and could not tell if this book had the right type of logic puzzles from the description.

Brainless
I am a seasoned veteran of logic puzzels, lateral thinking problems, math problems, and spatial reasoning puzzles.

These are not logic puzzles.They are not word problems.They are not tests of lateral thinking.Rather, they are poorly worded tricks.Everything has a "trick" to it.And not like the "roosters don't lay eggs" kind of trick, which can sometimes be fun.Not like the old game Mindtrap, which is also fun.Instead, you get these unclear paragraphs that require a few questions be answered before you can even go about thinking through a solution.

The complex crosswords are fun, but there are only four of them.Not recommended.

Unhelpful for LSAT prep
This was posted near LSAT review materials. I did not find it helpful. Too many of the questions are dissimilar from the type needed for the LSAT logic section.
It was also frustratingly difficult, because the directions and hints were too cryptic.

Ingenious!
Almost exactly ninety years ago, Sam Loyd's 'Cyclopaedia of Puzzles' was published in New York. This was a collection of a very large number of his puzzles which had mostly appeared in the American Press. Many were illustrated with delightful pictures at the head of the page, drawn in Sam's own hand. Barry Clarke's new book has marked similarities in layout with illustrations drawn by the author at the head of many pages and many puzzles had previously appeared in the 'Brain Twister' column in the Daily Telegraph. The drawings are remarkably like Sam Loyd's, but there the similarity stops. Sam Loyd's book was foolscap size and hard bound while Barry's has the typical Dover cover, but the real difference is in the puzzles themselves. Barry's puzzles are graded in difficulty, so that readers who do not wish to be challenged too much can start with the first section and gradually work themselves in. Also, the puzzles are ingenious and well thought out and hints are provided before the full solutions for those who need a bit of steering. This is altogether a very good read, guaranteed to keep the puzzler in the family busy over Christmas. I thoroughly recommend it.

(Angela Newing has written for The Daily Telegraph, UK)

The Mathematical Poetry of a Puzzle Artist: Barry R. Clarke
In this most recent adventure into the Puzzling World of Barry R. Clarke, I found my mind quite well entertained. What I enjoy most about logic puzzles is their requirement for little if any prior knowledge, and each of Barry's "puzzlers" is no different. However, what is missing in most logic and mathematical puzzle books is a touch of true creativity and humor. In Brain Busters! I found that while my mathematical mind was challenged to the limit, I was also encouraged to think in new and original ways, moving from basic logic to the simple yet complex world of recreational mathematics. Barry Clarke pushes your mind to the edge with this most recent creation, and holds you there.

As Mr. Clarke notes in the introduction, his reasons for this puzzle compilation included the pure enjoyment of creating logical and mathematical art. Fortunately for us, Barry's creations serve not only the role of entertainment, but also more importantly the role of instruction, as he leads us down different paths of twisting logic, with excellent scenery along the way. If you view mathematics as a form of poetry, you will certainly enjoy this opportunity to learn from a mathematical wizard. Brain Busters! is indeed a "mind-stretching" experience, one that allows you to see the way Barry's imagination is captured in a distinctly unique manner in each of his puzzles. His mathematical imagination is the communality that runs through each puzzle, but at the same time it is his creative touch that serves as the specificity, giving great variation to this excellent and enjoyable work. ... Read more

Product Description
Move beyond the norm in your math classroom and challenge students to think critically with Math Patterns and Puzzles for Kids. Exploring the hottest concept in puzzle solving—math logic puzzles—Math Patterns and Puzzles for Kids teaches students how to use reasoning to solve some of math's biggest conundrums: real-life patterns and puzzles such as Fibonacci's sequence, Sudoku puzzles, tangrams, Pascal's triangle, and magic squares. Students are taught the basic premises behind each challenging puzzle and are then asked to use the skills they have learned to solve multiple versions of each puzzle.

Grades 2–4 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fun and challenging!!
This is a great book and is not a traditional math workbook.It is fun,
interesting and educational.Awesome puzzles!This is really a neat
book for children who need additional challenges. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (4)

Makes math fun
Great book for making math fun and approachable...wish there more like it. I actually enjoyed and looked forward to helping my kid with math.

Classic problems just right for fourth graders
My fourth grade son recently purchased this book and he has been enjoying it ever since. He really likes the problems that appear to be magical, but are in fact simple applications of numbers. None of the problems are original, most would be considered classics, and some have been around for centuries. However, that does not detract from their quality, as they require a great deal of thought, some of it of the sideways variety. Like most good puzzles, successfully arriving at the solution sometimes requires that the obvious possibility be rejected in favor of a different approach.
A previous reviewer mentions that there is an error on page 69. That person is mistaken. The problem is correct as stated, the reviewer is simply not understanding that the numbers are not to be altered from their current alignment, which would mean the numbers that are left aligned are to be considered to have trailing zeros.
I enjoyed the book and my children are finding the problems to be challenging and educational. In no way do I regret allowing my son to purchase it.

7 Year Old Finds Math Error In Math Tricks Book
My 7 year old son found a serious math error in this book by Professor Numbers, aka, Ray Blum. On page 69, under "Mathematical Oddity", the author purports that the two columns of numbers have the same sum. The nine numbers in the left hand column of numbers are each greater than their counterpart in the right hand column. It goes without saying that the left hand column adds up to a higher number than the right. So much for basic math logic.

As an earlier review stated, this book basically recycles old math tricks. Not that this is a punishable offense, but the book fails to explain WHY the tricks work.

Mathemagic tricks quickly lose interest...
This book was written by copying existing well-known tricks. In my opinion this is a waste of money, and my worst online purchase ever. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (2)

A great workout!
A great book for those of you who are preparing for a puzzle competition and are looking for an exercise book (as I was when I bought this one). Despite it is only 96 pages, it has a great variety of puzzles, mostly contest types.

There are around 10 to 20 puzzles of each type, and these are:

- Alternate corners
- Battleships (classic, crowded, hexagonal, minesweeper, numerical, ocean view, semicircular)
- Corral
- Deja Vu
- Dominoes (domino hunt)
- Eminent domain
- End View (like ABCD)
- Fences (including big field fences and pentomino fences)
- Hex Loops
- Lighthouses
- Minesweeper
- Number place
- Nurikabe
- Oxtails
- Clouds
- Skyscrapers (only the 'number of buildings' type)
- Snaky tiles
- Spiral galaxies
- Spokes
- Square Roots
- Tents

The level of difficulty is pretty good, at least for the puzzles I tried.
The only drawback is that most of the puzzles are too small, especially the Fences. I've seen books where the puzzles on the answer pages are bigger than these ones. It's not like they are so small that makes it impossible to work them out, but still pretty small. What I'm doing on other books and will on that one too is to scan the puzzles, cut the white spaces and print them back again on larger sheets. This way you are not ruining your book when drawing and erasing and you can print (and solve) certain pages as many times as you like.

Highly recommended.

Best Puzzle Book I've Ever Worked!
If you love puzzles, this book is a **must have**! This is hands down the best puzzle book I have ever worked. There is a wide variety of puzzles and they are all unique, not your standard logic problems. Prepare to be challenged, these puzzles are definitely for the puzzle solver at heart! What a great mental workout! ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (4)

Super
Martin Gardner is the best and most entertaining puzzler around.You will enjoy this book.

Two books your kids will absolutely enjoy, and just for the price of One

This book is a bonanza of puzzles, riddles, and questions with an emphasis on humor. Two great volumes bound as one. Put together they account for 93 stimulating brainteasers ideal for strengthening young mental muscles. Ridiculous riddles, tantalizing teasers, intricate mazes, deceptive illusions, tricky questions, and a host of unusual word and picture puzzle will offer your kids many hours of challenging fun. All the solutions are given at the back of the book.

This curious and comic collection is the perfect companion for car trips, parties, picnics, or those long rainy days.

a book every child should have
I was so glad to find that this book is still in print.It was wonderful and challenging and great fun to figure out some of the problems, learn a different way of looking at things, stretching your imagination...It taught me that things aren't always the way they appear to be.It taught me to think for myself and I used it over and over again, exercising the mind muscle.I lost mine from 25 years ago, and its one of the books that has stood out from my childhood.Now I'm thrilled to find I can still get a copy for my son and a few copies as unique gifts. Its not like any other childrens book I've seen.

You probably think you're a pretty smart person.
Perplexing Puzzles and Tantalizing Teasers will definitely test your witsand best of all, it'll test your common sense.You'll realize common senseis not so common after all!The book is also full of word games, visualgames, conundrums, jokes, palindromes, and some real stumpers.I was givenmy first copy 18 years ago, and I've been hooked ever since.Theillustrations are great; and if you can't figure something out, the answeris always in the back. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Too short!
This book is a workout for the mind.It covers many logic puzzle types, and by the time you're done with a set, you feel like you've mastered a new skill.I wish they'd put one of these out every year! ... Read more

Book Description
Puzzled by Math! offers a collection of mathematical equations, knowledge, and skills in puzzle form. Gifted and advanced learners will enjoy solving the math problems on all four sides of the squares to fit the pieces of each puzzle together. The self-paced, independent activities found in this activity book provide students the opportunity to progress at their own pace to acquire and practice increasingly more difficult math skills. Standards-based content addresses addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, and algebra. Thirty-five exciting and challenging puzzles are included, as well as suggestions for using the material for a classroom learning center.

Other books that make math fun for kids include: Camp Fraction, Extreme Math, It's Alive!, and It's Alive and Kicking!

Grades 3-7 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

One kind of puzzle over and over
The puzzles are good but the book offers just one kind with different permutations. You tape a math problem to an answer to build a square. You need to understand that before you buy it. My students liked it. Creating new puzzles absorbed the time and energy of my more advanced students.

Puzzled by Math
This is an excellent book. It will help overcome understanding math, a pleasure to read. If you are having trouble with math this book is for you.

A Novel Book Witha Fantastic Hook
This book was very innovative and entertaining.The whole time I read it, it was refreshing to see a whole new take on the subject of Math.I think this will re-write all the tech books that our students have been using in schools ever since the beginning of time.I recommend it to not only the English-speaking world but to the entire globe of teaching in and of itself.Where was this book when I had to take General Math 3 times and attend summer school to boot?This book will revolutionize the inddustry of learning as we know it today. FIVE STARS does it no justice.

Basic Math To AlgebraPresented In Puzzle Form
A self-directed, hands-on approach to math that allows students to progress independently.If you appreciate academics presented and/or reinforced in game-form, you'll appreciate the 35 puzzles that begin with addition and end with square roots. As a gifted intervention specialist, the author welcomes all questions through her e-mail address noted within the introduction.

A childs understanding
This book is wonderful for children of all ages, it helps to learn what they either don't want to or just can't understand.It is a great learning tool for anyone who has any mathametical problems.I thank the author who put the time and effort into this for others to use.Job well done!!!! ... Read more

Amazon.com
This book has been a classic in the former Soviet Union since it was first published in 1956, and it remains just as entertaining today. A master at making math fun for his high school students, Boris Kordemsky loaded this clever collection with a wide variety of math and logic related games and puzzles dealing with magic squares, tricky weights and measures, properties of numbers, mathematical tricks, and more.Number and math game fans are bound to find several new amusements here. Even many of the well-known classics from generations past take on new life with the fresh twists Kordemsky provides.Book Description

Customer Reviews (10)

Funny, challenging, and well written!
I bought this book while working as a gifted children teacher. I liked it so much that I used to keep it in my car and solve riddles whenever I had to wait for someone. It is a great resource for all teachers; children are suddenly made quiet when you present a puzzle to them.

I especially like the stick puzzles, where you can distribute a number of matches to students (by the way, it works with kids, teenagers and adults alike) and give them a puzzle. The advantage of this kind of puzzle is that you can give additional tasks to those fast-solvers; you do not have a story behind it.

The organization of the book is excellent; it is divided by difficulty levels as well as by type of puzzle. For example, you have different levels of geometry problems and of sticks problems.

Great book!

very good
despite of difficulty, I love it because there are various good problems
Thanks you

An absolutely must have for puzzle lovers.

Excellent collection of math puzzles not requiring advanced math - A book for anyone and everyone

With and outstanding collection of 359 mathematical recreations and being lavishly illustrated with more than 400 diagrams and sketches, this book will certainly become a treasure in the personal library of anyone that enjoys solving puzzles.

It's a mammoth puzzle collection, compare with most math teasers and puzzles book available. But what is important is not the quantity, but the quality and charm of the problems presented.

The book is divided in fifteen chapters, as shown:
- Amusing problems.
- Difficult problems.
- Geometry with matches.
- Measure seven times before you cut.
- Skill will find its application everywhere.
- Dominoes and dice.
- Properties of nine.
- With algebra and without it.
- Mathematics with almost no calculations.
- Mathematical games and tricks.
-Divisibility.
- Cross sums and magic squares.
- Numbers curious and serious.
- Numbers ancient but eternally young.
- Solutions.

Everyone will find the type of problems the like most. Often the puzzles are presented in the form of charming stories that provides valuable insights into contemporary Russian life and customs.

Wonderful, charming puzzles teach problem solving.
I was thrilled and surprised to see that this book is still in print. I loved puzzles as a child and spent many hours for fun working the problems in this book (which may have paved the way for my PhD in Computer Science). I fished out my old copy recently to show my 11 year old daughter how I spent my spare hours as a child - *not* playing computer games of dubious educational value. I am sure that working the problems in this book helped increase my problem solving skills -in a different and more general way than I was learning in school.

Of all the puzzle books and puzzles I ever owned, this is the only one I saved.The book has a wide variety of types of puzzles (not all involve numbers). While some are easy, most were challenging.The descriptions were charming, with Russian names of children and towns and quaint puzzle descriptions involving wells, or steam engines or household objects. All in all, a delightful, very educational puzzle collection.

Comprehensive set of math puzzles for various levels
Nice collection of problems which demand some creativity as well as varying degrees of mathematical prowess.Also populated with interesting anedotes regarding mathematicians throughout history.

Although no mathematics beyond the high school level is required, the challenge lies in the ingenious application of even the most rudimentary math and logic necessary to successfully tackle these exercises.The problems range from rather simpleto difficult.Some amount to raw logic riddles requiring little or no math while others offer the opportunity to fine tune one's skills in geometry and algebra. In addition to offering a richvariety of problems which will satisfy the needs of puzzlists at many levels, the editors have made a good point of dividing the problems into categories emphasizing different sets of skills including geometry, algebra, arithmetic operations, spatial visualization and logic.Such a delineation makes it easy evaluate strengths and weaknesses so you can focus on areas of improvement.

Given the long history of this publication, several problems will be familiar to some seasoned puzzle enthusiasts but most will still provide a fresh challenge. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Puzzles that can be solved with reasonable persistence
The first sixty-three puzzles in this collection have the form:

In a certain bank, the positions of cashier, manager and teller are held by Brown, Jones and Smith, although not necessarily respectively. The teller, who was an only child, earns the least. Smith, who married Brown's sister, earns more than the manager. What position does each man fill?

Most of the rest are arithmetic problems where some of the digits are absent or represented by letters. For example, number ninety-two is

SPEND
- LESS
----------
MONEY

Solutions to all of the puzzles are given at the end.
While the puzzles require some thought, none is of the extreme stumper variety. By using a pencil and paper and working through the possibilities, all can be solved in a short period of time. Puzzles like this are excellent mental fodder and a good way to pass the time productively. In general, I enjoy working such problems and had a lot of fun with those in this book.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellant practice for "thinking" problems
You can teach your child to add and subtract, multiply and divide without workbooks. But the schools now insist on what they call "thinking" problems. These types of problems ususally are justconfusing to kids because they are hard to understand. But the problems inthis book really do stimulate thinking and they also offer the"confusion" factor that comes in trying to figure out what theywant. Hey, we are stuck with these types of problems in the schools,whether you like them or not.This book has excellant problems and theyhave the answers in the back of the book. My daughter is 8 years old andshe has found this a challenge. You still need to drill your child in thebasic math facts, and this book does not do that, but you don't need a bookfor that. You do need a workbook of "thinking" problems. I thinkthe teachers' colleges have lost their minds. This whole approach isflawed, but this workbook will help you teach your child how to cope withthis goofy stuff. I highly recommend this book. And, wow, it's cheap! ... Read more

Book Description
An experienced math teacher shares his best-ever math puzzles for boosting students' skills in multiplication and division. You'll find more than 35 fun-to-solve puzzle pages that target basic through advanced skills and get kids revved up for practice or review. Organized for quick reference by skill. Includes reproducible student tip pages with helpful strategies for tackling long division. For use with Grades 4-6. ... Read more

Book Description
40 Reproducibles!
Students will have fun while learning and reinforcing multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, and other basic math skills! Challenge them with fantastic mazes, crossnumber puzzles, riddle searches, mini-mysteries, and more! ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Innovative games promote learning through play -- the proven path to success in school.

At last Dorling Kindersley quality is available in a new group of games designed for the younger set. Full-color photos and bold graphics plus traditional and original, specially created games make these the playthings children will return to again and again.

Math Puzzles: Math skills practice for the early elementary grades. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Making Math Fun -- Even for Toddlers!
This is as simple as it gets: It's a set of cardboard puzzle pieces displaying basic addition and subtraction equations. For example, you can match the piece that says "1+5" with the piece that says "=6". The pieces that go together are cleverly designed with a unique interlocking edge, so you can't connect "1+5" with any other solution.

I know there's a game involving these equations, but in our house we've never even read the directions. That's because my son, who loves his "numbers puzzle," is only 3 years old, supposedly way too young for this activity. That doesn't stop him from poring over the pieces and fitting them together into equations. He loves it! Because of this set, my 3-year-old now knows as much math as most first graders. His only complaint (and the reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5) is that the numbers end at 10. He wants to add and subtract larger numbers! DK Publishers: how about a "sequel"? ... Read more