Karen Dolby, Emma Fischel, Caroline Church, Daniel Howarth and Teri Gower, Usborne Young Puzzle Adventure Stories
****
More overtly vicarious second childhood curation purchased tellingly far in advance, I hope she enjoys these elementary story puzzles as much as I would have done. But I was too absorbed by animated franchises back then and didn't indulge in this sort of thing as much as I should have, bar a Crystal Maze Mystery and a Quiz Kids or two.
1999 / Ebook / 397 pages / Canada
***
You'd think websites would be better, but having these variably obvious variations ("hide a bean bag," "hide a bear"...) all in one heap is convenient, even if the excessive padding requires a lot of skimming.
2000 / Ebook / 528 pages / UK
****
A decent adaptation (provide your own friend and dramatic stings) that gives you a more realistic idea of your capabilities than nodding along with the telly.
2018 (revised 2019) / Ebook / 352 pages / UK
****
I'm too busy, old and antisocial to consider putting these to use, but twenty-two-year-old me might have been up for it, and I might end up running the gauntlet anyway when my child's old enough, so I appreciate it on their behalfs.
Robert Fisher, Brain Games for Your Child: Over 200 Fun Games to Play
**
Do you know what types of games involve the brain? All of them, making this selection less specialist and more bloody obvious than it first sounded. Though that's probably less of an issue once you get out of the first three years, helpfully grouped together here like the uniform epoch they are. I might hang onto it, just in case, but school should be taking care of it by then.
