Customer Reviews

Alex and the Wednesday Chess Club

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

One of the most amazing facts about the human species is that child prodigies are found in only a few areas. I have heard it argued that they appear only in mathematics, music and chess. The most interesting part of this is that all three require the abstraction of patterns. This book is about a boy (Alex) who learned to play chess when he was four years old and loved to play until he was soundly defeated by an adult named Uncle Hooya. The defeat left a sour taste in his mouth, a literal statement, as he often used treats as chess pieces and ate every piece that he captured. Therefore, he vowed to never play chess again.

Alex then went on to try many other things, but after eating some dirt playing football, his mind went back to chess and he joins the school chess club. At first, he repeatedly goes down to defeat against the other members of the club, but eventually he starts to win on occasion. He then is a contestant in a chess tournament, losing his first two games, before he starts winning. The high point is when he plays a relative of Uncle Hooya. By concentrating and thinking of food, he defeats his rival, avenging the defeat that turned him away from chess for so long. The book ends with a top ten list of tips for success in chess.

Written for children aged 4-8, this is a parable about life with the points being made via chess. One defeat should never end your involvement in something you enjoy and the strategies for success listed by the coach of the chess club can be applied to any field of human endeavor. It is an excellent book of lessons about life and what you must do to succeed.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

Read it to a classroom full of kindergartners and they enjoyed it. Quite a few of them were inspired to play chess.

Grand daughter is four and interested in chess.

She likes this book.

It is also difficult to find on the shelves, so Amazon deserves a thank you!! for their service.

This book is about a boy who loved to play chess. My favorite part was when the knights acted like real horses, galloping across the board and jumping over other pieces.

Helen Iorga, 2nd grader

The core of this story is formulaic (kid suffers setback, kid gives up, kid bounces back, kid finds success). But it was written by someone who obviously understands the world of scholastic chess, and chess is therefore more than a parable for the lessons of life: it is the central feature of the story. The humor and moral are subtle and understated; while they clearly went over the "kid reviewer's" head, it's easy to see why from the sense of humor he displayed in his review. Other readers should not be thrown off the scent by someone who didn't get it. Kids should be attracted by Alex, who finds something he likes to do, decides to stick with it, and perseveres to succeed even though he fails several times beforehand. But this is as much a book for adults as kids: a sly tribute to a mother who understands both the benefits and the attractive power of chess and who was wise enough to "put up with" junk food, missing chores, and an ego funk in order to get Alex hooked on the game. Smart woman!

Chess is a great thing to encourage for elementary age kids--lots of studies show math skills going up when kids play chess at school. This is the only book I've ever seen that is about the chess-playing experience (at home, in a school club, and at tournaments). Other books focus on how to play and chess strategies. This book has a little bit of that (with the Coach's 10 Tips and discussion starters like playing slow and Miss Lightningquick thinking moves ahead), but what really makes it special is how it shows that chess kids can have well-rounded personalities and have fun. I taught my son how to play chess and the time we spent playing chess has always been some of our most special time together.

My grandson, named Alex, is learning to play chess - this is a wonderful book for him.

Alex loves junk food. He doesn't do his chores. But he wins in the end. This is a great lesson. I will tell my mom that I can't help her because I am studying chess. Then I will eat lots of chocolate and cheese curls. Maybe I'll fart, too.