The Book of Tangrams: 700 Puzzles (Dover Math Games & Puzzles)

Let’s just start by saying that this book does NOT have 700 puzzles, or anywhere close. I count 629 solutions on the solutions pages, and even that number is too high because a number of puzzles are repeated on more than one page. For example, there’s a rooster shape that shows up at least three times, possibly four. I’m not up to the challenge of figuring out exactly how many duplicates there are (and I readily agree that anyone who sits around counting solutions in a tangrams book needs to get a life), but I estimate that the actual number of unique puzzles is well below 600.On the bright side, though, this book has a high percentage of what I consider “fun” puzzles, i.e., recognizable objects, people, animals, etc., and not just abstract shapes. Another fun feature is a number of scenes made up of several figures, each composed from a single set of tangrams. For example, there’s a mother cat surrounded by a swarm of kittens, each in a different pose; a baseball game; and two people tending a garden of exotic plants. Admittedly, it’s hard to reproduce these scenes for yourself unless you have a large collection of tangrams in different sizes. But the pictures are fun to look at.As for the text, it’s…well…possibly the best word to describe it is “baffling.” Much of the book is a spoof. It purports to be a summary of an ancient Chinese text called The Seven Books of Tan, which supposedly discussed the development of humanity, history, and philosophy, and illustrated it all with tangrams. The Seven Books of Tan are imaginary, but apparently Sam Loyd fooled quite a number of people into believing they were real. If, like me, you're aware that the book is essentially a practical joke, but don't quite understand why the joke is funny, your reaction to the text will probably be about the same as mine, which is, "Um....what?" This book was originally published in 1903. Possibly Loyd was parodying some type of book or writing style that his original audience would have recognized at once, but lacking that context, I don't get it. Even when Loyd isn't rambling about the Books of Tan, some of the humor just hasn’t aged well. For example, Loyd introduces a page of profile shapes by saying, “Aunt Betsy with Uncle Rhube and Mary Smith, whom we all know, comes next…Tom Sharkey requires no introduction, and then we have the Professor, Buffalo Bill, and ‘the Easy Boss,’ all of whom it is safe to say could be recognized from the others.” Sorry, Mr. Loyd, but a hundred years later, I don’t know these people.But odds are that you’re buying a tangrams book for the puzzles, not the text. If you happen to be buying it for the same reason I did, which was to make a worksheet or small booklet of tangrams for children, I must say that the project was unexpectedly difficult because many puzzles are printed so close together that it’s hard to cut out individual ones. (Then again, I may be the only person who ever had that specific problem.) However, the solutions are printed as white shapes outlined in black, so they photocopy clearly, unlike another tangrams book I have which shows the solutions as black shapes outlined in white. The editors have also helpfully labeled the large and medium triangles in the solutions with L and M.So…if you’re looking for the largest number of tangram puzzles you can get in one volume, skip this book, because much larger collections are available. If you’re looking for reliable information on the history of tangrams, skip this book, because most of the text is, literally, a joke. But if you’re looking for a reasonably good but not overwhelming selection of puzzles to interest children or beginners, this book is worth considering.

This book was very much appreciated by someone who is in prison. It keeps their mind occupied and also serves to help be social and entertain other inmates as well.

That pretty much says it....very small diagrams, and many are repeated. Was hoping to use the book with kids in a small summer camp situation. Not sure that is going to work.

Estamos começando agora, tem muitos exercícios, parece ser muito bom

Fun to do but also challenge which is good

Le gustó a mi hijo

There are 700 but there's a lot of text and they're really small

Das Buch ist sehr übersichtlich und die Lösungen sind gut erkennbar.Ich mag ebenfalls die Darstellungen die Sam Loyd in dem Buch zusammengefasst hat.