Crossword books

A World of Crosswords

Entertaining, interesting, and educational.

222 crosswords – at least one for every country. One crossword puzzle per page and the solutions are at the back of the book. Everyone knows about Canada, USA, UK, Germany…, but who knows the capital of Croatia? What are the three official languages in New Zealand? And what country would I have to be exploring to visit Chitral, Taxila, and the Cholistan Desert? Where is Lake Van? And Shiraz? What is the currency in Liberia? And where is the Okavango Delta? Where are the Chitwan National Park and Lake Baikal? And which 2 countries are double-landlocked?

Women who changed the world

40 crossword puzzles to entertain and educate about some of the world’s most significant influencers and change-makers. These crosswords aren’t intended to be fiendishly difficult like those impossible cryptic crosswords published in the newspapers. These puzzles don’t obey the normal rules of crosswords – they’re not symmetrical and sometimes answers are repeated. These crosswords are to help you learn more about women who changed the world.

Climate change

The book begins by explaining what climate change is and what is causing it. We then explain what is causing polar ice melt and thawing permafrost and we describe some of the effects of these processes. We describe extreme weather events which are very likely caused by climate change. We explain how deforestation and agriculture are adding to the greenhouse effect which fuels climate change. We explain what fossil fuel energy is and we explain the link between burning these non-renewable energy sources and climate change. We describe how climate change is affecting animal and plant habitats and behaviour and how this is causing some species to be at risk of extinction. A new term has entered our vocabulary: ‘Climate migrants’. These are people who are forced to leave their homes due to climate change. We explain how and why this is happening.

New Zealand/Aotearoa Crosswords

60 entertaining, interesting and educational crossword puzzles – one puzzle per page and the solutions are at the baclk of the book.

These crosswords aren’t intended to be fiendishly difficult like those impossible cryptic crosswords published in the newspapers. These puzzles don’t obey the normal rules of crosswords – they’re not symmetrical and sometimes answers are repeated. These crosswords are to help you learn more about New Zealand/Aotearoa.

New Zealand/Aotearoa is on the ring of fire, on the edge of the Pacific tectonic plate. The land was formed as the two tectonic plates crash together. The country is made by earthquakes and mountains and volcanoes and glaciers and rivers and the weather. Earthquakes push the earth’s crust upwards and erosion brings it down again through glaciers and rivers and onto plains and beaches. The country is a collection of big islands and small ones. There are no land-dwelling mammals and flightless birds such as kiwi, kakapo, and weka fill this ecological niche. The country stretches from the sub-tropical Kermadec Islands up north to the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands in the far south. The Chatham Islands to the east are across the date-line, which would’ve been inconvenient so we moved the line out around the Chathams.

There are crosswords about our cities: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin… and there are crosswords about all of the regions, from Northland all the way down to Fiordland. There are crosswords that focus only on rivers, and lakes, and mountains, and beaches & bays. Completing these crosswords will be like bundling yourself into a camper-van for a road trip from Ninety Mile Beach near Kaitaia down to Wellington, across Cook Strait to Marlborough and on down to Te Waewae Bay near Tuatapere – and then across Foveaux Strait to Stewart Island/Rakiura.