Mermaid Puzzles by Stella Maidment and Daniela Dogliani (Children's, 5 years +, 10E/10E)

 August 2013, QED, 32 pages, Paperback, Review copy

Themes: life under the sea, aspects of music, practicing, how to treat royalty, helping others, friendship, fun, mazes, item search

Summary from QED

Each book consists of an adventure story with a main character, and puzzles to solve. Puzzles, searches and mazes are combined with ‘look and find’ and ‘friend to spot’ features. A page of easy yet fun activities can be found at the end of each book.  Highly reusable, no pens needed. Solve each puzzle on your way through fantastical settings and brilliant stories! Trace through mazes with your finger and help each character and their faithful friends on their adventure.

Nayuleska's thoughts

As you can see from the cover the mermaids' world is vivid and full of detail. I loved the colours of their tales which go from dark to light. I liked the clever way how eels were used as streamers, and how the animals face the direction of whatever is the main action of the scene - oh and how everyone, mermaids and creatures alike , curtsey for the king. 

On every page there is always Walter the seahorse to find - it can get a bit tricky as he doesn't stay in the same pose, plus 3 other items of varying number to spot - these too can be tricky as they can be hidden fairly well. Plus there is a maze, or spot the difference, or an item search to do - it truly is jam packed with puzzles! All answers are at the back of the book (although I'm still not sure why two noses were different), as well as some mermaid themed activities to try out.

Suggested read

For more books in the series check out Unicorn Puzzles also by Stella Maidment and Daniela Dogliani (Children's, 5 years +, 10E/10E, link to follow soon)