It's for You

The way to a colorfully wrapped package, tagged "It's for you," lies through a series of ingenious mazes and numerical and verbal riddles, to a safe, and back through the preceding scenes.

Grade 3-6?Instead of the current trend of taking a book and making it into a computer game, Talbot has taken what should have been a computer game and made it into a book. It opens with a package that must be unwrapped; what follows is a riddle or riddles that must be solved to reach the next step; of course, there is no way to keep readers from advancing before each clue is "unwrapped." The pages with mazes or board games are more successful than the ones on which readers are supposed to manipulate objects. There is a lot of frustration inherent in being told to "pick up" pieces that are part of a drawing. Interspersed are small puzzles, some of which do not make immediate sense without specific instructions. The full-color artwork is intricate and will attract browsers. In all, this is a good try, but not really a good idea.?JoAnn Rees, Sunnyvale Public Library, CA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Part Graeme Base, part Batman's Riddler, this book should carry a warning label for the puzzle-impaired. Talbot's intriguing (at times confounding), visually arresting picture book runs the risk of losing all but serious puzzlers. The adventure begins with the arrival of a mysterious package, which contains a strange box. Each turn of the page reveals an array of riddles, clues, math problems, mazes-even mini-board games-which readers must solve in order to discover the box's contents. An abundance of red herrings further complicates the quest. The intricately detailed, often surrealistic artwork appears to be the product of a fevered imagination-dragon-infested waters surround a mile-high labyrinth, endless sets of staircases lead off in all directions. Provocative, but not for the easily frustrated. Ages 9-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.