Starting Chess by Harriet Castor | Book Review

★★★★★

5 Stars | Non-Fiction | Children's |Educational | Games

A great introduction to the game of chess

I was taught how to play chess when I was a teenager, so I already knew what each piece was called and how they moved when I started teaching my son the game as part of his homeschooling curriculum. With that said, there was still much to learn about this game that I had never been taught before.

This book takes the reader into the history of chess, providing a short overview through the book, of the game over the years. In the first few pages it also provides a quick intro to what is needed to play the game of chess, the symbols used to represent each piece, how set up the board and even what each side of the board is called.

Next the book provides a breakdown of the pieces in the game of chess over the span of a couple of pages for each one, explaining the moves that each piece can do, accompanied with visuals, and how they capture the opponent’s pieces.

To help the reader with comprehension on the section read, the book provides visual puzzles throughout. The reader can even try their first game of chess with only the pawns, kings and queens, adding more pieces to each subsequent game as they learn them.

The reader is also taught about exchanges and bad swaps, special moves, opening moves and tricks, writing chess down and how a game of chess can end.

This book taught me quite a bit about this game and I still reference it when a question arises in the middle of a game, but most importantly it taught my children, who are eight and eleven, the game of chess.

Here is the chess set we purchased through Etsy.

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