Customer Reviews

The Book of Think: Or, How to Solve a Problem Twice Your Size

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I just pulled out my copies of this book and The I Hate Mathematics Book! to show to someone. I read them both prolifically from years 8-12 or so, and to this day pick them up occasionally. I was curious to see if it was still in print, and pleasantly suprised. My copy of this book is so well worn, the cover is falling off of it.

The Book of Think, simply put, is a book that teaches critical thinking skills. The puzzles are fun, and sometimes a bit surreal. The skills learned are invaluable. I believe this series was recommended to us by a gifted education teacher. They strongly shaped my formative years. I remember staying home and reading these two books, and others in the series. They are loaded with practical problems and hands on tools to use. I am sure that a teacher could find lots of great activities for students with these books.

Quick, click on the link and purchase this book, Hate Mathematics, I am not a short adult, Blood and Guts, The Reason for Seasons, This book is about Time... get them all before they are out of print. You won't be disappointed. It may be the best purchase you have ever made for your children and/or students. Maybe even yourself! I think I'll reread them all.

Lisa

This book is one of my favorites for group activities, ice breakers, and getting a staff team to start thinking creatively. It is perfect for anyone who likes a challenge and the answers not just handed to them. I have given these books as gifts to adults and see them use the exercises over and over. Highly recommended. (Maybe even your kids would like it.)

I was given this book a zillion years ago when I was a kid. It must have made quite an impression on me, because I still remember it fondly all these years later. I recently bought a copy for my 6-year-old and, while some of the book's concepts are a little advanced for her, she still enjoys it. This book encourages creative problem-solving and analytical skills, two things that are not taught nearly enough in today's schools.

This 125-page children's book really makes you think by challenging the most basic of assumptions. Some of the exercises are quite simple, some a bit more complex, but all of them make readers consider things from a different point of view, a skill that all too many people in 2008 have utterly lost.

After explaining briefly that people often get roadblocks in their brains, or "build your own mental walls," and keep bumping into them, this book first sets about proving the point, and then proposes several samples of mental gymnastics to get one's brain "unstuck."

The second, entitled "Looking at what you usually see," challenges ten pretty basic assumptions. It asks readers to try a ten-question quiz, answering each item "true" or "false." Then readers are asked how many answers they were absolutely certain of and how many they guessed. After a week, they're asked to try the same quiz over again. In many more instances than one would imagine, readers answer wrong, and a week later, still get a lot of questions wrong.

Similarly, the book instructs readers to "watch out for mental blinders," which prevent problem solving just as much as physical blinders prevent peripheral vision for horses. Drawing a line through nine dots in only four strokes, for example, is possible without lifting the pencil off the page---only if one thinks "outside the box."

Newspapers today are as guilty as school children (and too often, teachers) of insisting that reports may be told only one way. Any news falling outside the lines of "acceptability" essentially get blocked out. This is the boxiest means---that is to say, the stupidest possible---to cover national and international events in a supposed democracy.

By not admitting information from "outside their box" news media are contributing mightily to the downfall of free thinking.

Fortunately, readers still have The Book of Think, and the Internet, to help them evade all those dumb, artificial boundaries.

This is a remarkable little book! Written in 1976 and every bit as relevant today, the authors strive to develop the art of thinking by demonstrating all that we have right in front of us and miss, not through all that we "still need to know". By learning to frankly observe both oneself and the world, the reader discovers that he or she really can solve problems, big or small, with far less effort than they could imagine!

In brief: The focus is on problem *solving*, not "finding the right answer". It belongs on the bookshelf of every thoughtful child from ages 8 to 18, and on a good number of adult bookshelves as well.

I was given this book as a child. It was one of the best gifts I ever got. Every child should have this book, and every parent should read it, too.