Chess for Children

I want to teach my nine year old granddaughter to play chess but I haven't played myself since high school, so I needed my own refresher in order to be able to instruct her correctly. This book teaches the game so much better than I could do on my own. It introduces the moves of the different pieces and the game strategy in small bites; never more than a young person can grasp at once. And it has abundant illustrations, so your young player can visualize the concept being introduced. And the sequence of new material makes perfect sense. So logical! Really glad I found this book. It's a bargain, and fun to boot. Highly recommend.

I gave this book to my grandson for his 9th birthday. He has been playing around with a chess board for over a year with surprising skill and minimal instruction. This book contains excellent illustrations and instructions that he can read and understand is just what he needed to fine tune his game! It was helpful to me too, a beginner chess player! Chess is a wonderful mind game, full of strategy and abstract concepts and introducing it to children is a great gift.

I bought this to teach a kindergartner how to play. As I worked through it, I found it easier and more effective to just teach him straight ahead. In other words, I walked him through the name and function of each piece. I explained the board and piece layout. I explained castling and en passant. He got it. The exercises are good, but I used the book for ideas and for a sense of curriculum. That's why I give it four stars. While the book may have been used differently than I expected, it served my goal: to teach a young one chess. Anthony Trendl anthonytrendl.com

This is a great (and fun) way to teach kids Chess! We rented "Searching For Bobby Fischer" and watched it with our 10yr. old twins. They loved it! I bought the kindle version of this book and put it on their Kindle HD's and then found a cool Chess app to go with it. This book taught them far more about Chess than I ever remembered learning and it did it in a way that was fun and easy for them to understand. I highly recommend it!

I am using this book to teach my two older children (6 and 4) and my wife (who never learned) how to play chess. It is WELL done at having bite sized lessons followed by exercises. (I add some additional ones of my own.) I was concerned about the algebraic chess notation lesson with my four year old, but he did great! The best part about this book is that it isn't just a "here are the rules" book. Last night we went through the lesson on the value of pieces and talking about whether a swap is good or not. Some other really good lessons are the ones showing common checkmates, that talk about what to do when in check, and the chapter on forks, pins, and skewers. This is a great book, but understand that it is for the absolute beginner. I think it is going MUCH better using this book than if I had tried to teach the kids just by myself.

First let me say that overall this book is well-geared for children and adults alike. The content is excellent. HOWEVER there are HUGE printing errors that are massively confusing for one who actually reads the book and the moves closely. In the board depictions about taking the king the black king on the board is consistently illustrated as a white king in the move instructions. Particularly for young players still trying to figure out the notation system, this is highly confusing. I had to go through the book with a black pen and meticulously color-in the white king references that should have been black king references in the move instructions so that my grandsons wouldn't have whiplash from trying to figure out the book. This book has been in print since 2004. I am utterly shocked this has not been fully edited in the 2017 printing since this is the 12th reprinting of the book. Possibly this is a new error only in the 2017 re-print, but since I ordered this in December of 2017, it certainly seems someone would have noticed this and corrected it before...unless adults buy this book for kids to read and then wonder why the kids seem confused or turned off. The author or publisher definitely needs to address this problem. If the rest of the book wasn't really good or if I was not willing to go through and take about an hour to color in the move depictions, the best place for this book is the trash bin. The last thing I want to do for my grandchildren is to get them confused about chess if they take the time to read this book carefully. Very counter-productive. That said, with better key editing, this could be a very good book for kids.

Bought this for my first grade grandson who want to joint the chess team! His mother reports that he is fascinated with the book and very focused on the diagrams.

Chess game instructions made easy to understand; even for adults like me! Very basic Chess game instructions/review that are concise and to the point; even my 6 yr old understands. I didn't realize that Chess teaches algebra, as this is great for younger children as they get exposed to higher levels of math, and don't even realize because the game is so fun !

This is an excellent introduction to the game of chess for children. It is clearly laid out and the content is easy to follow. The tests after each task are a really good idea, and my Grandson aged 8 really enjoyed doing them.Children would learn a lot from this book and i also found that it helped me remember the rules and moves as I had not played the game for many years. My Grandson kept the book and took it on holiday when he played chess with friends.I intend to buy another copy of the book to keep at home so that I can try to stay one step ahead of him!

The content is very good to me, however I am amateur (around 1700). The book could only be better is the illustrations were in color.

Lo considero ottimo per il mio nipotino (6 anni) che è di lingua inglese ed al quale cerco di trasmettere la mia passione per gli scacchi.

I live in London, bought this book for my nephew in Paris. He was extremely happy with the book. Very convenient and highly recommended. Amazon FR worried about the postage etc, I just clicked the button and paid. The book was received in perfect condition.

very important book, as i believe chilrdren should learn to how to play chess and practice same. it forms them to think!