The Chess Kid's Book of Checkmate (McKay Chess Library for Kids)

Rating:
Summary: Just don't like it
Review: "How could the David McKay Chess Library Publish this?" is the first question I asked after getting this book?
Super OVERSIZED diagrams in an obvous attempt to "cover up" the obvious lack of material. Poor organization, inferior ways to accomplish what should be made simple for kids and a lack of telling the how and why of what is going on charactorized this "masterful work" of duping the public. I can recommend this book to noone.



Rating:
Summary: Not an improvement
Review: I had purchased the same author's Chess Kid's Book of Tactics and though wasn't that pleased decided to take a chance and get his book on checkmates. I am not that advanced in chess and need help with the basics. My father has been helping me, but said I should get some books to study from too. I thought that maybe this book would have improved in the ability of the author to explane things. Not so.
I agree with the revewer that said that the way this book shows checkmate with a King and a Queen is slow. My father showed me how to use my King to help with that checkmate and make it much, much faster. I want to learn to do things the best way from the start.
I also found some of the things in the book to be very confusing.

Rating:
Summary: Not clear and not well set up
Review: I've read some of the other reviews and I would have to say this book is just not that bad. First of all this is not for the absolute beginner, but for a beginner who at least knows basic rules and how to move the pieces. It has a nice easy feel to it; information is to the point and never drags on. It is basically as the title says a good review of checkmate information that the beginners should know. Some of the various mates reviewed are Anastasia's, Morphy's, Pillisbury's, Lolli's etc. There are just a couple of mistaken answers that didn't bother me one bit. The chess board diagrams are not quite 2"x2", not over sized. I give it 3 1/2 stars, with a little more details and a few more examples this would have easily been a 4-5 star book.

Rating:
Summary: Has some flaws
Review: This is a book containing checkmate puzzels designed for children. A fair number of the problems contain important patterns which are useful for finishing your game.
The book contains some serious flaws. The demonstration of how to use a Queen to force checkmate against a lone King uses a slow and inefficient method, which takes about 2 times as long as it should to force the checkmate. Kids should be shown how to check mate efficiently. This very example stops numerous moves before the checkmate and then jumps to an example of the final checkmate position! It doesn't show the entire mate to save space in the book. To save space in the book the publisher should have not had such oversized diagrams.
The book is also lacking in organization and is not as complete in material as it could be.