More BANANAGRAMS!

More Bananagrams!
Published at Workman

About the book

Joe Edley, the wordplay genius who created the puzzles in Bananagrams, now steps it up in More Bananagrams! by creating eight new joyously mind-bending puzzle types, and adding another level of difficulty—puzzles with a five banana (super hard!) rating. In all, there are over 500 original new anagram puzzles, including Banana Splits (solve letter substitution scrambles in rapid-fire fashion), Banana Peels (add new letters to words and rearrange to spell something new), Banana Boats (evolve a chain of words, one new letter at a time), intersecting words, vowel replacements, adjacent letter scrambles, and much more. The puzzles are rated one banana (simplest) to the fiendish new five banana, and enriching supplementary material is featured, including fun banana facts, helpful word lists, and, yes, an answer key.

My thoughts

If you are looking for a book containing word games to help you develop more vocabulary or simply to have fun with words, you definitively need to check out the More Bananagrams! book.    Based on the award-winning word game Bananagrams! this book contains 560 all-new appealing word challenges to stir-up your brain cells.

The book begins with a story of Bananagrams! and a quick how to play page.    The beginning of the book also presents some weords which are strange and useful words that will help you play Bananagrams! as well as variations of the original game to help you develop more skills with the real game.

Having said that, let me present you the different word games included in this book:

• Top Banana – present you a grid with a pile of letters.  All you have to do is rearrange the letters to find two intersecting words.  The other game included in Top Banana requires you to find six words using letters offered as well as one letter from the top word and find a bonus word hidden in the six words previously found.
• Banana Splits – You have to change one letter from the words offered to composed new words.     Also in the other page you have to replace the question mark with one of the letters suggested at the top of the page to create new words.
• Banana Trees – In these pages, you will have 15 tiles to create words that fit in the grids offered.   Hints are written to help you sold each grid.
• Banana Peels – Two word games are offered here.  The first one consist to add one letter to all the four-letter words and form a five-letter words.  However, it would be the same letter for each one.    The second game consist to replace one letter of a word with the letter suggested after the plus sign.   Then you have to rearrange the letters to spell something specific like for example a type of fruit.
• Banana Filling – Three word games are included in these two pages.  The first one consist to add the suggested letter to each word and create a new word.  The second game will request you to fill in the blanks in the words using the letters of the alphabet except the ones mentioned.  Finally in the third game you need to use three of the tiles offered to complete the blanks in a word.
• Bunch of Bananas – For each word of phrase below, you will have to rearrange the letters to spell two new words.  Another game is also included where you have to find three common five-letter words using the 15 tiles suggested.  
• Go Bananas! – Will stretch your thinking process even more with a bunch of 21 tiles where you can connect and intersect common words in a grid.   Each word must respect the instruction given for example you might have to do words of more than two letters which is a name of a planet.
• Banana Boats – Here you will have two different word games.  In the first one you have to rearrange the tiles while changing only one letter to form a new common word.  You have a start word and a finish word and you need to go from the first one to the last one in three changes.   The other word game consist to form a word which already have two letters by using some of the letters suggested above it.

As you progress in the book, the level of difficulty (showed with bananas) will rise as well.   You can go from a one banana to a five bananas level of difficulty.

This book is quite small and can easily by inserted in your purse or luggage.   I can see it to be useful while waiting for an appointment, in an airplane or simply to pick your brain a bit on vacation.      It is perfect to stretch your thinking cells, to broaden your vocabulary whether English is your first language or not as well as practice resolving problems.   If you are the type of person enjoying word games, I think this book will be of interest for you.

More Bananagrams! is available at your favourite boosktore, even amazon.ca.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Thomas Allen for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.