Since the only game I’ve played reliably in the past, let’s say eight months has been a logic time killers game on the iPad and before that I dragged around a logic puzzle book with me, filling in the boxes while watching movies with Tesfa on the basement couch, let’s just say I am a fan of logic. I learned how to do matrix logic puzzles in third or fourth grade, a teacher giving them to me to keep me busy when I’d finished my work. When I saw a giveaway for a matrix logic book for kids, I thought this was a perfect opportunity to force share logic puzzles with her.
The book suggests ages seven through nine, and Tesfa is six, but both her parents have PhD’s in math, so I figure she’s probably math-literate enough to go through the book, provided I read it to her.
Here are her thoughts on the story: The book was funny. The artist [one of the characters in the story] reminded me of daddy because he kept eating and I liked that the doll could talk. The best part was getting to help solve the mystery. The problems weren’t too hard so I could do it. I liked that the pictures were in black and white so I could colour them later.
Her thoughts on the puzzle on the last two pages: It wasn’t too hard for me. I wish there were more like them in the book that I could solve all of it by myself.
Her rating: Five out of five!
So we’ll take five out of five for the rating.
As for me, who is clearly not the audience the book is going for (unless secretly when they say kids seven to nine they mean thirty-four year olds with advanced mathematics degrees), obviously the enjoyment I got out of it was reading it to Tesfa. Tesfa didn’t have any problem following the logic until Chapter Five, where the idea of transitivity (obviously not labeled as such) was introduced, i.e. cats eat fish and fish are blue, therefore cats eat blue things. She did get better at that after we went through a few examples. The level of reading was definitely beyond what she could do at six, but I don’t think it would pose any problem for an eight or nine year old to read themselves. There was one point (which I thought I marked but can’t find) where I thought Gavin was being very gender-roles enforcing, and another where someone said when Petunia here was being a good girl and not fussing so and I have a hatred for both equating being good with not making a fuss and with the phrase good girl or good boy or basically any phrase directed towards children that one would never use in regards to an adult and is more appropriate to use for a dog. Also, this book might not work in Australia, since a lynch-point of the story is the phrase No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service, which, for some bizarro reason, I couldn’t get over how this book would not work down under because of that. Seriously, it must have been because I watched The Slap a few weeks ago and I’m in an antipodal frame of mind. But getting past that, the story will appeal to kids (even if it is a little far fetched and drawn out) and Tesfa had a really good time figuring out who stole the spoon.
But really, the best part for me? After we finished, Tesfa drew a picture on the front, me and her working together under a big, squiggly sun. I like that most.
Logic Lotty: The Fortune Teller’s Spoon by Paige Peterson went on sale January 15, 2015.
I received a copy free in a librarything giveway in exchange for an honest review.