HarperCollins Big Puzzle Book: More than 250 brain-tickling quizzes, sudokus, crosswords and wordsearches

I bought this for my 7 year old he really enjoys it. It's something different to media and builds their knowledge too. Fantastic.

Great puzzle book. My son loves it.

Paperback and much smaller than anticipated.

What you see is what you get with this Big Puzzle Book. It’s not big in its width and height- it’s almost pocket-sized, but not quite- but it is thick, packed with the best part of 300 pages of puzzles that will keep a puzzler of around 7 to 10 years old entertained for a long time, provided they like wildlife and they like puzzles of course.Most of the puzzles are on the traditional, familiar side and many of them a child will be able to crack on with without any help. Crosswords, spot the differences, word searches, quizzes and mazes are all here in abundance. There are a couple of puzzle formats that were just slightly new to my kids- number towers and word wheels- but they were able to cotton on to them quickly. At no point was there a puzzle which a grown-up would look at and go “why have they made that so confusing?”.Slipping in a bit of educational value is rather neatly done as well. Quizzes are an obvious way of course, but the inclusion of little insert boxes on almost every page, each with a little paragraph of science or background that relates sensibly to the picture or theme of the page, will help boost kids’ general knowledge without them even realising they’re being taught anything.This is a ‘one shot’ book which encourages kids to write on the pages themselves when solving the puzzles, but since there are so many pages, you might find that several kids could share nicely and do a bit each- if they’re inclined to.It’s reasonably priced at time of writing, it’s nicely printed with bold clear photos throughout, and there’s a lot of fairly traditional keep-the-kids-quiet activities inside. It’s a winner.

This bumper-sized book of puzzles has around 250 pages of brainteasers, plus a detailed answers section at the back of the book. Puzzle types are: crosswords, Sudokus, wordsearches, Guess what?, Number pyramids, picture jumbles, mazes and word wheels. The puzzle types are repeated, but to help keep things interesting the book is divided into a series of different topics, including The Natural World, Under the Sea, Transport, History, Science, Space, Minibeasts, and more.The book is all in colour, with loads of photographs accompanying the puzzles. The paper used for the pages is matte rather than glossy – making it easy to write in. Felt tip pen does bleed a bit, but most other writing implements seem to be fine.Size-wise this book is a bit wider than a novel, but fairly similar in height – so overall a good, hand-hold size.The puzzles are pitched about right for my 11 and 8 year old nephews to complete. These offer a bit more challenge for 8 than 11, but still engage both boys nicely.