Math Puzzles and Brainteasers, Grades 3-5: Over 300 Puzzles that Teach Math and Problem-Solving Skills: Over 300 Reproducible Puzzles That Teach Math and Problem Solving [Kindle Edition]

The idea for this book (and its companion for grades 6-8) is very good. Also, the majority of the brain-teasers are well thought out and would stimulate the mind of any child. Unfortunately, there are several cases where the problem is poorly posed, or outright wrong. I'll give two examples, found in the first 10 minutes perusing the book:

* Problem 225 is poorly posed from a pedagogical viewpoint. The explanatory diagram clearly contains four vertical paths and two horizontal paths, but the text asserts that there are only three vertical paths. The solution to the problem diagram (which also has four vertical paths) requires that only three of the vertical paths be considered. Either the diagrams should be changed, or there should be additional text indicating that the last move must be horizontal (this would render the fourth vertical path unusable in both diagrams). The answer pages were also silent on this topic.

* Problem 260 contains a glaring error which any adult will spot in less than a second. A Braille alphabet is given as reference, a sequence of Braille glyphs is provided and the missing last glyph/letter in the sequence is to be deduced. Unfortunately, although most of the letters in the Braille sequence are four places alphabetically after their predecessor, the second letter is only three places after the first, destroying the pattern which would reveal the answer. This is blithely ignored in the given answer for this problem. Actually the answer itself contains another error, in that as well as wrongly asserting that the sequence is every fourth letter, it actually leaves one letter out.

Both of these examples are of a nature which undermines the objective of the book. If they had been done properly, they would be brain-teasers for young minds. As they actually appear, they are a frustration which require "special pleading" to explain away.

This review applies to the first edition of the book, published in September 2009 and purchased in January 2011. I checked the web sites for both books, and there is no list of errata (the book was published over a year ago) or author contact information. Until corrections are available for these books, only parents who are competent in logical problems should consider buying them, since every problem will need to be vetted for misleading presentation or actual error. This admonition also applies if you are a teacher planning to use the book in a classroom.

My advice: consider waiting for the second edition.