The Ultimate Book of Optical Illusions Paperback – September 28, 2006

Fun book, great gift

interesting

This is a very solid book with many illustrations of classic illusions.

Got this for my tween daughter for Christmas & she loved it (well, at least it grabbed her attention for about a week or so, which at that age is amazing for any gift!). It really was a conversation starter and was passed around quite a bit during the holiday. Was cool that my 10 yr old, along with myself & the grandparents all found pages in the book of interest - really spans the ages. Book is set up where each page has a different "style" of illusion & it gives the name of what that type of illusion is called. Eye-tricks & hidden pictures on each page was fun to skim through. Great for the price, under $9 shipped.

I cannot tell you how pleased I am with this book. I had been loooking for a "science-y" type book to donate to my son's kindergarten class - something to get kids excited about science other than dinosaurs. Well, my son got so excited when he started "getting" the illusions that I literally thought he was going to have a potty accident. He wanted to look at page after page - some of the illusions he got right away and others he didn't really see, but he was not deterred. In fact, the whole family - both parents and 2 kids, looked at the book enthusiastically for much of the night. There are hundreds of excellent photos with nice simple captions. The book is very entertaining and offers a broad array of types of optical illusions. The book does not describe how or why these illusions work, so if you are looking for that, you'll need to look elsewhere. But for a great collection of optical illusions - suitable for your coffee table or your children's classroom, you will not be disappointed. I am going to look at Seckel's other books to buy another!

Enjoyed the illusions

The GOOD:Has lots of illusions.The BAD:Is missing some of the best optical illusions, like those that take advantage your eye's blind spot.The images are cropped a little small.SUMMARYI gave this book as a Christmas Gift to my 10 year old niece and she said it "was the best gift she got." The book has a lot of artwork that was designed to be an optical illusions (like pictures drawn to look like a person one way and a bowl of vegetables another way). I wish it had more optical illusions like the ones that take advantage of your eye's blind spot. The actual images are cropped a little small. Some of the optical illusions are repeats from other parts of the book.

I've had previous versions of this book, which were about twice as big. Given that these are optical illusions, I think a larger form factor is preferable for this publication. Especially since the illusions don't even fill the page - they are surrounded by white space. I also would have appreciated a little more subtext for certain illusions, an explanation perhaps written by Al.Still probably one of the better collections of illusions all in one place.