Best Color Activity Book: Totally Awesome Mazes and Puzzles
What’s the best way to find the best activity books for kids aged 7 to 9? Well, we asked kids aged 7 to 9 what they thought of several popular activity books. After all, they are the experts!
We looked for quality, variety of activities and—of course—fun.
Many affordable kids activity books are black and white. That’s fine, but it’s nice to also have a full color book as well. After trying out several color activity books, we thought Parragon’s Totally Awesome Mazes and Puzzles was the best bet. Here’s why:
What We Liked
• Nice variety—there are over 200 challenges. Word searches, number puzzles, dot-to-dot, matching games.
• Fun!
• Sturdy, high quality pages and color printing.
• Affordable.
What Needs Work
• No perforations. It’s always nice to be able to tear out a page to hang on the fridge. But this book’s pages aren’t perforated.
• Heavy on mazes. We like mazes, but some kids thought there were too many in this book.
Best Budget-Friendly Activity Book: Blue Wave Books Activity Book
You don’t have to spend a fortune to find a good activity book for kids aged 7 to 9. We tried out several affordably priced books before deciding Blue Wave Book’s activity book was the most fun. And yes, it says ages 6 to 8 on the cover, but we though it was just fine for kids up to age 9. Here’ more:
What We Liked
• Cute illustrations.
• Nice variety: mazes, coloring, word search, puzzles and more.
What Needs Work
• Black and white. Well, that’s how it is more affordable! But we don’t think the lack of color detracted from the quality.
• No perforations.
Best Activity Book For Puzzles: The Everything Kids’ Puzzle Book
Mervin the Mouse is a reoccurring theme in this two color activity book—lots of fun puzzles, plus word games and decoding activities. We like the overall quality of the Everyday Kids series and this puzzle book hits the mark.
What We Liked
• Great for road trips.
• Over 150 pages—nice variety of activities.
• Good size—not too big for a kid’s lap.
What’s Needs Work
• Thin pages means markers might bleed through.
• Vocabulary might be a bit much for 7 year olds. But it doesn’t hurt to challenge them, no?
Best Challenging Activity Book: Brain Games for Clever Kids
If your 7 to 9 year old child is up for some more challenging activity book, we’d suggest Brain Games for Clever Kids. This engaging activity book includes memory games, word and number activities and even Japanese puzzles including sudoku.
What We Liked
• Brain exercise! Regular activity books are fun for coloring and puzzles—but this book turns it up a notch! Our kid testers liked it.
• Affordable,
• Challenging but fun.
What’s Needs Work
• Format is a bit small. This book’s size, 5″ x 8″, makes it challenging to use on road trips.
• Cheap paper. We wish the publisher had used something heavier than low quality newsprint in this book.
• Black and white. Yes, that is what it makes it affordable, we know!
Why Trust Us
We’ve been rating and reviewing products for families since 1994. We do hands-on testing—we buy the products with our own money and evaluate with an eye toward quality AND value!
Here’s another key point: we don’t take money from the brands we review. No free samples, no sponsors, no “partnerships.” Our work is 100% reader-supported!