The Warlord's Puzzle

Rating:
Summary: Delightful, gorgeously illustrated picturebook story.
Review: A Chinese warlord receives a ceramic tile as a gift and promptly sentences the artist who made it to death when the title is shattered into seven pieces. The desperate artist proposes that a contest be held. Whoever is clever enough to put the tile fragments back together will be asked to live in the warlord's palace -- and his own life would be spared. After an enormous multitude of people fail at the task, a little peasant boy figures out a novel and unexpected solution. Virginia Pilegard's The Warlord's Puzzle is a delightful, highly recommended picturebook story that is gorgeously illustrated with the full color, museum quality artwork of Nicholas Debon.

Rating:
Summary: Delightful, gorgeously illustrated picturebook story.
Review: A Chinese warlord receives a ceramic tile as a gift and promptly sentences the artist who made it to death when the title is shattered into seven pieces. The desperate artist proposes that a contest be held. Whoever is clever enough to put the tile fragments back together will be asked to live in the warlord's palace -- and his own life would be spared. After an enormous multitude of people fail at the task, a little peasant boy figures out a novel and unexpected solution. Virginia Pilegard's The Warlord's Puzzle is a delightful, highly recommended picturebook story that is gorgeously illustrated with the full color, museum quality artwork of Nicholas Debon.

Rating:
Summary: A new twist on an ancient puzzle
Review: Do you enjoy working tangram puzzles? Have you "hooked" your child on them? We've been working with a puzzle thousands of years old. This is precisely what the author and illustrator of The Warlord's Puzzle team up to present to the reader.

The author chose the use of the mathematical terms - parallelogram, square and triangles - in describing the shattered tile. The solution of the puzzle includes visualization, imagination, and determination.

The author and illustrator combine to create vivid images of that ancient Chinese time period. One senses the cruelty of the warlord, as well as the timidity of the people in approaching him. The illustrations are striking. They depict the culture, customs, and costumes of the time period.

Elementary teachers and those teaching mathematics - add this one to your collection!

Rating:
Summary: Tells of a fierce warlord in China
Review: Fine color drawings by Nicholas Debon bring the Chinese topics to life. Warlord's Puzzle tells of a fierce warlord in China who receives a ceramic tile as a gift, but sentences the man to punishment when it's shattered. The artist poses an unusual contest as the solution for the problem.

Rating:
Summary: Great across-the-curriculum math resource w/ gorgeous art
Review: I can highly recommend this book to parents and teachers. It's well-written with characters that come alive through some of the nicest children's book art work I've seen this year.

We used the tanagram puzzle pattern at the end of the book, and went on to make up our own, too. I think it's an excellent introduction to geometry.

Plus we talked about ancient China vs. China today.

You hear a lot about "math across the curriculum" and this book is such a great example of how that can work well for kids.

Outside of the classroom, my son wants to read this book at bedtime, too!

Rating:
Summary: Who can solve the Warlord's Puzzle?
Review: The Warlord's Puzzle is a traditional Chinese tale that proves you do not have to have money or power to have intelligence. An artist gives a warlord a gift of a blue tile, and then drops it on the ground and breaks it into seven pieces. A contest is held that will reward anyone who can fix the tile, and the one who ends up solving the problem will surprise readers. The book has a mathematical twist because the pieces break in the shape of a tangram puzzle.

The author has found many ways to capture the interest of readers in this unique story. First, the characters of the book come alive through the beautiful pictures. Each page is rich in color and shows the emotions of the characters throughout the story. The words on each page are also arranged in unique ways to help give emphasis to the text and interest readers. Some of the phrasing of the sentences is difficult for young readers to understand, so some explanations may need to be given while reading. Overall, this is a very interesting and creative book that could lead into many different types of discussions.

Rating:
Summary: Who can solve the Warlord's Puzzle?
Review: The Warlord�s Puzzle is a traditional Chinese tale that proves you do not have to have money or power to have intelligence. An artist gives a warlord a gift of a blue tile, and then drops it on the ground and breaks it into seven pieces. A contest is held that will reward anyone who can fix the tile, and the one who ends up solving the problem will surprise readers. The book has a mathematical twist because the pieces break in the shape of a tangram puzzle.

The author has found many ways to capture the interest of readers in this unique story. First, the characters of the book come alive through the beautiful pictures. Each page is rich in color and shows the emotions of the characters throughout the story. The words on each page are also arranged in unique ways to help give emphasis to the text and interest readers. Some of the phrasing of the sentences is difficult for young readers to understand, so some explanations may need to be given while reading. Overall, this is a very interesting and creative book that could lead into many different types of discussions.