The Brainiest Insaniest Ultimate Puzzle Book! 250 Wacky Word Games, Mystifying Mazes, Picture Puzzles, and More to Boggle Your Brain

by Shenk, Mike; Goldstein, Amy; Leighton, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780761143864
• ISBN10: 0761143866
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-13
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company

Summary

Its win-win for the whole family: Kids love puzzlesand parents love their kids to love puzzles. Now from Puzzabilitythe premier puzzle-writing company whose mind-benders have appeared regularly in The New York Times and Disney Adventures, and repeatedly in The New Yorker and Martha Stewart Kidscomes a rich, original, and entertaining category-killer of a book with over 250 puzzles on every imaginable theme and subject. Fully illustrated in color, here is a bonanza of mazes, word games, visual and logic puzzles, and more. With a full range of difficulty, but all totally solvable, the puzzles are not meant to be tests. In fact theyre engaging and humorous, as fun to work on as they are satisfying to solve. In Gray Matter, readers first solve a short crossword, then use the letters in the puzzle to crack a riddle. Hot Lines involves matching kids to their clothingbased on tan lines. Flea Circuit is an unusual maze that you find your way out of by jumping around the page like a flea. A scavenger hunt runs through the booksolve every puzzle to amass the clues and earn the bound-in certificate of achievement. (Yes, the honor system applies.)

Author Biography

Mike Shenk is an expert puzzle maker. Along with Robert Leighton and Amy Goldstein, he founded the company Puzzability, which creates unique and challenging puzzles for kids and adults.
 

Amy Goldstein is an expert puzzle maker. Along with Robert Leighton and Mike Shenk, she founded the company Puzzability, which creates unique and challenging puzzles for kids and adults.
 

Robert Leighton, a New Yorker cartoonist, has created puzzles for The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The New Yorker, ABC, and more. He lives in New York. Along with Mike Shenk and Amy Goldstein he’s the founder of Puzzability, which creates unique and challenging puzzles for kids and adults.
 

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 4
Sir Glance-A-Lot	p. 6
Observe: A keen eye is required for the picture puzzles yonder
Riddle Green Men	p. 38
Riddle puzzles and other unidentified flying questions
Alice in Wanderland	p. 64
Mazes with all kinds of unexpected twists
The Wordman of Alcatraz	p. 80
Wordplay puzzles for anyone with a long spell in the pen
Sherlogic Holmes	p. 128
Logic and sequence puzzles and other mysteries to untangle
FrankEinstein	p. 146
Monster puzzles to torment almost any brain you happen to have around Answers	p. 169
Still have puzzle fever?
Take a crack at the Scavenger
Hunt at the very end of the bookcomplete it, and youll earn the Certificate of Achievement!
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Introduction This is no ordinary book. For one thing, you dont write in an ordinary book. We heartily encourage you to write all over this one. For another thing, an ordinary book has chapters to be read in orderotherwise, you might find out who done it before you know whats been done. This book has sections where the order doesnt matter dive in wherever you like! The sections are hosted by different characters who will present different kinds of puzzles, so if you have a favorite type, youll know where to look. The book begins with Sir Glance-A-Lot, who presents the picture puzzles, followed by the Riddle Green Men, who ask questions of all sorts. Alice in Wanderland will take you through the mazes, The Wordman of Alcatraz is in charge of the word puzzles, and Sherlogic Holmes handles the logic and reasoning section. Finally, theres FrankEinstein, who looms over the section with the books toughest puzzles. (In the other sections, we havent said whats easy or whats hard because different people are better at different kinds of puzzles.) Like we said, this is no ordinary book. No ordinary book would make a point of telling you what to do if you get stuck. Novels arent known for offering advice to people who cant follow the story. Atlases dont say how to find your way home if you get lost, and dictionaries dont tell you how to look up a word if you cant already spell it (although they probably should). So just in case you find yourself stuck along the way, here are some tips to keep in mind: 1. Read (or reread) the instructions. Why are some of the boxes different colors? What do the arrows mean? Should I cross off these words as I use them? Read the instructions, and youll find out. Sometimes a puzzle will have a bonus message that you wont find unless you know how to look for it. Other times, two puzzles may look similar to each other but have different rules for solving. 2. You dont always have to solve everything in the order its given. If you get stuck solving from top to bottom or left to right, just jump somewhere else and work your way out from there. Also, some puzzles have two parts (like many in the Riddle Green Men section, which reveal the answer to a riddle when youre done). If you can solve somebut not allof the first part, maybe you can use what you know to figure out some or all of the final answer. Then you can use that information to get the parts you skipped over. 3. Stop solving and come back to the puzzle later. If you find yourself trying the same thing over and over again, put the puzzle down. Sometimes all you need to do is come back later and the answer will suddenly pop out at you. (Your brain keeps working on it even though youre doing other things.) In case youre permanently puzzled (or just want to check how you did), the answers are all in the back of the book. There youll also find a special foldout Scavenger Hunt that will have you searching co