1000 Playthinks: Puzzles, Paradoxes, Illusions & Games FROM OUR EDITORS
Give your brain some much-needed exercise with this massive book of brainteasers and puzzles. Conveniently spiral-bound, 1000 Playthinks has a colorful layout and includes all of the solutions in the back of the book. It features hundreds of puzzles in categories such as patterns, numbers, science, perception, geometry, shapes, and more. You can test your skills by timing yourself as you complete the puzzles, then check your answers in the back, or, if you can't handle the pressure, throw out the wristwatch and just take your time. 1000 Playthinks is the perfect book for lovers of crossword puzzles and board games, plus it's a great resource for parents and teachers seeking creative ways to keep the youngsters from overloading on television and video games.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
A compulsive, exuberant cornucopia of puzzles, 1000 PlayThinks is like salted peanuts for the brain. Here are mental games, visual challenges, logic posers, riddles and illusions.
Can you cross the IMPOSSIBLE DOMINO BRIDGE? Wield the SICKLE OF ARCHIMEDES? Or figure out how to avoid the booby prizes in GAME SHOW?
Comprised of both original puzzles and mind-boggling adaptations of classic games this book, written by a man Wired magazine called "a living inspiration for the rest of us," celebrate that unique place where pure play and problem-solving coexist.
Start solving. And right away you'll feel smart, intuitive, curious, successful and at one with the beauty of mathematics.
FROM THE CRITICS
VOYA - Cynthia Gueswel
Wow! This book just might become everyone's favorite, even if they do not realize at first that the inviting compendium really is a math and science book in disguise. "PlayThinks" is Moscovich's all-encompassing term for illustrated puzzles broken into concepts such as geometry, logic and probability, patterns, and perception. Each PlayThink has a difficulty rating from 1 to 10 and is indicated as a mind puzzle, paper-and-pencil puzzle, or a puzzle involving tracing, copying, or cutting. Puzzles are indexed by difficulty level, allowing a reader the options of using the book randomly, by topic, or by level. The possibilities for using Moscovich's work are countless. In the time this reviewer carried the book around, she found it addicting when alone, nabbed by friends both young and old, pored over and discussed at length by groups, and pleaded for by teachers. Everyone asked, "Why didn't you get this book sooner?" It is big. It is bright. It is inviting and downright happy. It is also the compilation of a puzzle master who has been around for more than forty years, creating his own works and adapting classics. The solutions are clear, succinct, peppered with historical tidbits, and educational. As Ian Stewart writes in the foreword, "Lurking within every good puzzle is a general message about how to think when you are confronted with a problem." Moscovich outdoes himself creating a book that should be in the hands of every teacher, librarian, and puzzle hound. Index. Illus. Biblio. VOYA Codes: 5Q 4P M J S (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10to 12). 2001, Workman, 420p,
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Moscovich believes that "now that most of the physical frontiers have been crossed the mental ones beckon us." He has created these visual challenges, riddles, and puzzles to help push thinking into these new frontiers. Some of them are completely original; others are adaptations of classic challenges. They are bold, bright, colorful, and genuinely inviting. They are arranged by mathematical or scientific category, and ranked by a degree of difficulty from 1 to 10. A key further subdivides them into mind puzzles, pencil-and-paper puzzles, those that must be traced or copied, and, finally, those that require cutting. Most can be done alone; some are for groups. When complete and total frustration has set in, readers can turn to the back of the book for the solutions, which are clearly illustrated and explained. Sidebars explain the mathematical or scientific principles involved. The spiral binding allows the book to lie flat. Put this out where teens can see it and you'll find them poring over the puzzles, trying to figure them out.-Jane S. Drabkin, Chinn Park Regional Library, Prince William, VA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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