Product Description

International Master Michael Basman puts 20 years of experience teaching children how to play chess into this systematic, succinct, and thorough book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64818 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-23
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 48 pages

From Booklist
Gr. 4-8. International Master Basman puts 20 years of experience teaching children how to play chess into this systematic, succinct, and thorough book. Dedicating each page to a different topic, he guides readers through the rudiments of the game, from explaining the pieces and setting up the board to special moves, essential techniques, and attack and defense strategies that players must know to win. Especially interesting for readers entirely new to the game are anecdotes in the "Check it out" section, which explain the origins of chess and how the game has figured in literature, language, and even history. A solid introduction for novices and good for skilled players wanting to develop their strategies and find out about chess clubs and tournaments. Roger Leslie
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Michael Basman became hooked on chess at the age of ten and has been playing ever since. Since becoming an International Master in 1981, he has dedicated his time to teaching school children how to play.

Customer Reviews

Chess for Kids
My 7 year old son was thrilled to receive this book. He studied it for 1 day then challenged me to a game. He kept the book open while we were playing and referred to it often. He played much better offense and defense understanding how the pieces move and how to plan ahead more than one move. It made a huge difference! He even asked me to find him a link online so he could play on his own.

Not the Greatest Book to Begin with
CHESS FOR KIDS will get you started with the the very basic rules and will teach you some starting strategies and tactics.

Good Things about this book:
1) It covers the rules you need to know as a non-tournament player.
2) It covers just enough strategy and ideas to get you started.
3) Lots of Colour - makes it look attractive.
Not Good Things about this book:
1) It is written so that young kids cannot understand the level of reading level (should come with a notice: Batteries Required, Opps! I mean older reader required to help young readers),
2) The order of things is out of wack sometimes. This can make the learning confusing.

There are better books written for the beginner or children. For a teen or older Learn Chess by Alexander and Beach is much better organized and has a lot more depth. There are a couple chess books for the junior beginner that have a lower reading level.

Somewhat Confusing Methodology and Order of Progression
No doubt about it - the graphics and picutures in CHESS FOR KIDS are excellent. This is what I consider to be the good points of the book, now on to the weaknesses,

The weaknesses are:

The order in which the material is given needs some improving. This is not the exact order that a kid (or an adult) should be taught. This creates a degree of confusion.

The level of reading is not well suited for young kids to learn from, and

Some of the ways that things are explained, such as in the rules and certain aspects of strategies could use some improvement.