32 books like Jumbo Book of Amazing Mazes

Good things normally happen when passion and talents combine. That’s certainly true of this book by Sean C. Jackson, an experienced maze creator and lifelong Star Wars fan. There are 30 lovingly illustrated mazes that take you through the Star Wars universe, from the Death Star to Jabba’s Palace and beyond. I love the style of the mazes, they are detailed and fun to look at, and while they live together as a family, Sean manages to add plenty of variation to keep young people engaged. Also, because the maze paths are depicted as roads and paths within each setting, it is very clear where you can and can’t go, an important consideration for a maze.

Pierre the Maze Detective is a series of books, that, unlike my four other recommendations, combines maze solving with a narrative. I could have picked any book from the series, but I particularly liked the Mystery of the Empire Maze Tower. Each spread is a beautifully detailed illustration, somewhat similar to Where’s Waldo?, at first glance, the maze is not obvious, but on closer inspection, through the busyness, you can spy a series of paths subtlety woven into the illustration. I think this book (and the others in the series) offers a wonderful extra dimension to a slightly older solver, someone who can immerse themselves in the story, solve the mazes, and solve the crime!

You can always rely on a children’s book published by Usborne, the Big Maze Book by Kirsten Robson is no exception. It offers 50 different mazes to solve, each charmingly illustrated. The mazes themselves are nice and varied, incorporating different settings, different subject matter, and slightly different visual treatments, which all helps to keep solvers interested. As a whole, this book would probably appeal more to younger children who still enjoy picture books. That being said, the mazes do get progressively harder through the book, so there is something there for the slightly older ones too.

Here’s another maze book by Usborne, Around the World Mazes by Sam Smith (as I mentioned previously, Usborne publishes great children’s books!). Unlike The Big Maze book this book has an overarching theme linking all the mazes, ‘places around the world’, also, each maze covers the entire double-page spread, so there are fewer mazes but with greater visual impact. While the delightfully illustrated mazes will appeal more to younger children, they do playfully bring to life the different locations they depict, whether that be the Australian Outback or coast of Vancouver, and so provide educational content along with oodles of fun!

With the subtitle Solve The World's Most Challenging Puzzle, how could one resist a dive into this fantastic world? Each page number represents a different room in a strange mansion with clues and riddles littered throughout. At less than 100 pages, one might think it’s quite simple, when in fact there are people still lost within the maze, unable to escape - very few have managed to find their way to the center and out again without looking up the correct path. Good fantasy is always immersive, but rarely like this.

Most business owners have a difficult time translating their ideas into words. Without the right words, it’s impossible to get buy-in for your big ideas. The Red Thread is a simple method to make a compelling argument for why your idea matters and why people should care. If you’re looking to get clarity around an idea and make it irresistible for others, this book is a great place to start.

An amazing book, a completely original book, about a world emerging from the gorgeous dreams of mythology into the light of history. This "autobiography" of the mythological creator of mazes and artifacts, the father of technology, and the first human (with his son Icarus) to fly, Daedalus speaks to us across the millenia in his own voice, through the man uniquely qualified to bring it to us. Michael Ayrton was an English sculptor is the mid 20th century. He studied the techniques of his great predecessor and duplicated for the first time many of his feats, thought to be impossible. This book is a meditation on the themes of creation, innovation, and the dangerous and exalting contact of human beings with the Divine.

Our society places a premium on verbal thinking, but over the course of my career, I’ve had the pleasure of learning from neurodivergent children who see the world around them in images and use those images to solve mundane and complex challenges alike. This book by Temple Grandin has helped me to shift my own mindset as a verbal thinker and appreciate the abilities of those who think in more abstract, non-linear, and systemic ways.

As a BCBA and pediatric neurologist, having the opportunity to hear directly from Grandin, who is autistic, is invaluable. I share her perspective that we do autistic people–and society as a whole–a great disservice when we relegate visual thinkers to the sidelines instead of empowering them to be the artists, designers, engineers, inventors, mechanics, and innovators our world desperately needs.

This is a book of essays about the act of looking, especially looking at photographs and paintings and animals and other people. Thus these are essays about history, memory, suffering, beauty, and the self. Berger had a generous spirit; he wrote often about the lives of peasants and spent the last forty years of his life in rural France. Berger gazed upon the world in all its forms with composure and curiosity. 

Many thousands of adults have learned to draw better by following Betty Edwards’ course. I am one of them.

In the book, she also explains why so many people (including me) believe they cannot draw. Why, she asks, do children spend so many hours at school learning to write? What if schools devoted that much time to drawing? Why don’t they?

Letting go of thinking in words and starting to use our senses to perceive the world helps us see the world more like it is and less as we believe it is. Betty Edwards provides great methods for getting ‘out of the words’ into the senses. I see more detail around me after having spent some time drawing something around me attentively.