Your child loves codes, ciphers, hidden messages, and secrets — leaves you notes in invisible ink, and cracks the birthday-present wrapping like a safe. Every book on this shelf hands them a real puzzle to solve as they read: rebus clues, anagrams, ciphers, pentominoes, a code tucked into the artwork. Pick by which flavor of puzzle appeals.
This is a shelf for a specific passion, so grab whichever puzzle-flavor lights your child up. Want pure fizzy fun with rebus clues and a game-show feel? Start with Mr. Lemoncello's Library. After the sheer machinery of a good brainteaser, printed right on the page? The Puzzling World of Winston Breen. For codes and ciphers wrapped in a real chase, Book Scavenger, and if your child would rather notice patterns than run from villains, Chasing Vermeer hides a code inside its own illustrations. Winterhouse folds anagrams and word ladders into a spooky magical hotel, and The Westing Game is the summit of the fair-play mystery, a Newbery classic that finally makes a clever reader work. Every one is solvable alongside the characters, which is the whole point: hand it over with a pencil. They range from gentle to suspenseful, so check the heads-up on the one you choose.