10-minute BANANAGRAMS!

10-minute Bananagrams!
Published at Workman

About the book

Everyone loves Bananagrams! And everybody loves instant gratification. Putting the two together, master puzzle maker Joe Edley offers 10-Minute Bananagrams!— over 500 all-new puzzles that are designed to be solved in ten minutes or less. This is lickety-split Bananagrams, perfect for the train, the bus, waiting rooms, bank lines, for carrying wherever and whenever a Bananagrammer has just a few minutes to indulge the obsession.

With two difficulty levels—the easier one-half banana and trickier one banana—these bite-size puzzles are quick to solve and highly addictive. Ten lively, mind-bending puzzle types are featured, including Banana Peels (add letters to words, then anagram); Banana Pudding (extend two-letter groups into six-letter words); Bunch of Bananas (anagram one word into two smaller words); plus the brand-new Banana Bites, in which the solver anagrams a group of letters to complete a word.

Supplementing the Bananagrams are fun banana facts, helpful word lists, and, of course, an answer key.

My Thoughts

After having the opportunity of reviewing Bananagrams!, More Bananagrams!, and Bananagrams! for Kids now I will present you another book based on the award-winning word game 10-Minute Bananagrams!   This book contains over 560 fanst and fun words challenges that will drive you bananas for more.  Like the other books, this book is easy to carry around if you have an appointment or simply want to kill some time on the bus.  Did you know that in India, the banana was called “Fruit of the Wise Men” because men would meditate under the shady leaves of banana plants?   Fascinating fact isn’t it?

Anyhow, here’s the various word games that are included in this book.

• Banana Bites will request that you rearrange the letters over the puzzle in order to form a new word.
• Banana Filling will challenge you to find a new word by adding one letter to a word mentioned already.   Also in the page, you will have another puzzle that will ask to use the a certain number of letters offered to complete a grid.
• Banana Shakes will offer a series of words that have to start by suggested combination of letters.    Your brain cells won’t be able to stop trying to find the words.
• Banana Peels will challenge you to find the letter that could be used to form new words.   This game will be quite challenging for everyone.
• Bananarama will require you to find the two words that are using the same letters.  In a way they are pairs and you need to list your finding on the side.
• Banana Chips will once again ask you to find words with letters offered on the top of it.  However, the twist is that one letter is missing and you need to find it out.   The offered letters are in alphabetical order so the search for the letter missing isn’t has hard as it sounds but sometimes the challenge is raised when the options are numerous.
• Top Banana offers some letters and you need to find two intersecting words to fill the grid offered.
• Banana Crunch offers a set of ten tiles which contains two words.  Your challenge is to find the first word by finding the adjacent letters – which are not in order by the way – and then you can find the second word.
• Banana Pudding will offers letters on top of a word.  Drawing from the offered letters you have to form the words by filling the blanks.   You won’t have to use all the letters to figure out the word.
• Totally Bananas offers a word as well as a letter.   You need to replace one of the letters of the word with the one suggested to create a new word.
• Banana Trees presents a series of tiles which can be used to solve the grids.   One hint is provide for each grid.  You need to use the tiles offered at the top of the page for each grid to solve the puzzles.
• Bunch of Bananas will give you two words and request that you rearrange the letters to spell two other words.    You will receive some guidance while working this puzzle as they will tell you what you are looking for in the instructions.

My strong suggestion when using this book and the other ones as well, would be to make certain that your have a pencil to solve the problems.  I find it easier if you have an eraser handy in case you make some errors!  

Mind you this book is not just handy for appointments or for the bus.   It could be the perfect book to pack while going on vacation whether you are driving (well for the passenger anyway!) or flying.  It is also a great item for older kids who are going to camp or if they want to challenge themselves during lunch time at school.  

Here’s another thing I learned about banana leaves.   Apparently they are edible – however you need to cook them before they became tasty.    Also they are quite versatile – they can do anything from polishing leather shoes to killing warts.  

So if you are the kind of person who enjoys word games, you will definitively like this jewel of a book.    You will be challenge and you will also develop your vocabulary.  This book is perfect for young adults and adults.

10-minute Bananagrams! is available at your favourite bookstore, 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.