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Usborne Puzzle Adventures #10
The Ghost in the Mirror
-- Action packed stories of mystery and adventure interwoven with puzzles to solve-- Great fun for kids to read and decipher
48 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 15, 2020
I love these puzzle adventure books put out by Usbourne. Each book is a story involving some mystery that needs to be solved. Each page give you a picture or series of pictures, comic book style, in which are a lot of visual clues to solve a puzzle. There are often a lot of messages to decode, mazes and hidden picture clues.
August 9, 2018
Puzzle mystery book for kids where you find clues in the illustrations. Never read it as a kid but got it from my neighbor a bit ago and my son loves it. I think it is too difficult for him (6 years old) but no matter, he is undeterred. Now I'll have to find the others in the series.
September 5, 2018
This was a decent book about an adventure in an haunted manor. This book was very interesting at some parts, but at others I wanted to put this book down and read another one. i liked how this book ended on a cliff hanger, but overall I probably wouldn't recommend it to someone else.
March 26, 2026
Review of this particular book:
Some kids sneak into an abandoned mansion, meet an inventor, and help him scare off some thugs!
The mansion is the real star, with much of the puzzles involving navigating it and finding secret rooms/passages. It was a fun place to explore! Also a fair bit of code breaking in this one. Mostly solid puzzles with a couple I thought were a bit iffy.
I found the story a bit silly, but hey, it's for kids. A fun time!
Review of the series in general:
I had a collection of some of these as a kid, and loved them! Reading them again now, it's obvious I didn't solve all the puzzles when I was young... some I struggled with even as an adult (and some I just outright got wrong).
That's one of the problems with these books... the difficulty is all over the place. About half of the puzzles I can solve within 30 seconds, a quarter I can solve after thinking about them for a couple minutes, and then there is a quarter where I need to get out some pen and paper to puzzle things out.
And if you get something wrong, welp, you've got it wrong forever! That's one of the advantages video games like Professor Layton has... it can tell you you're wrong without giving you the answer, so you can try again. For this reason, I advise checking the hints section before confirming your answer, just to make sure you didn't miss something.
Puzzle quality is also mixed. Most are fun, but there are some the feel unfair because you weren't given enough information, or the information given wasn't clear enough. Some puzzles would also really benefit by having physical components separate from the book (like maps and puzzles pieces), but I get why they didn't do that (budget).
The stories are all simple but entertaining enough for a kid... I certainly enjoyed them and re-read them even after going through the puzzles. It helps that so many of the pages are dense with fun details and jokes... though they have to be, because you often have to go back and check details on previous pages to solve puzzles.
But yeah! These tend to be a mixed bag and I don't know if people who didn't grew up with them would enjoy them, but I still think they're a good time for the most part and a fun diversion even as an adult.
Some kids sneak into an abandoned mansion, meet an inventor, and help him scare off some thugs!
The mansion is the real star, with much of the puzzles involving navigating it and finding secret rooms/passages. It was a fun place to explore! Also a fair bit of code breaking in this one. Mostly solid puzzles with a couple I thought were a bit iffy.
I found the story a bit silly, but hey, it's for kids. A fun time!
Review of the series in general:
I had a collection of some of these as a kid, and loved them! Reading them again now, it's obvious I didn't solve all the puzzles when I was young... some I struggled with even as an adult (and some I just outright got wrong).
That's one of the problems with these books... the difficulty is all over the place. About half of the puzzles I can solve within 30 seconds, a quarter I can solve after thinking about them for a couple minutes, and then there is a quarter where I need to get out some pen and paper to puzzle things out.
And if you get something wrong, welp, you've got it wrong forever! That's one of the advantages video games like Professor Layton has... it can tell you you're wrong without giving you the answer, so you can try again. For this reason, I advise checking the hints section before confirming your answer, just to make sure you didn't miss something.
Puzzle quality is also mixed. Most are fun, but there are some the feel unfair because you weren't given enough information, or the information given wasn't clear enough. Some puzzles would also really benefit by having physical components separate from the book (like maps and puzzles pieces), but I get why they didn't do that (budget).
The stories are all simple but entertaining enough for a kid... I certainly enjoyed them and re-read them even after going through the puzzles. It helps that so many of the pages are dense with fun details and jokes... though they have to be, because you often have to go back and check details on previous pages to solve puzzles.
But yeah! These tend to be a mixed bag and I don't know if people who didn't grew up with them would enjoy them, but I still think they're a good time for the most part and a fun diversion even as an adult.
December 1, 2020
I LOVE Usborne Puzzle Adventures and they were a staple as a kid. Ghost in the Mirror is one of my favourite in the series. The illustrations by Susannah Leigh are top notch and contain so much detail.
April 10, 2023
Nostalgia as a mum is the best. Will be getting more from the library and re-reading after my son. Love the usborne puzzle books.
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August 23, 2023Very good! Definitely my favourite of those I've read so far.
August 11, 2016
Holyyyyy crap this book accompanied my childhood and terrorized my night time sleeps with its childish yet tasteful suspense drawn onto each puzzle page.
Some puzzles did not work because the book was translated into Chinese and no 8 year old Chinese boy will go through the effort of translation to piece together a broken message written in boy scout shuffle code; but it was fun to flip to the end of the pages and hope that at least I guessed half of the answers.
Now I understood why I couldn't sleep alone at a young age.
Some puzzles did not work because the book was translated into Chinese and no 8 year old Chinese boy will go through the effort of translation to piece together a broken message written in boy scout shuffle code; but it was fun to flip to the end of the pages and hope that at least I guessed half of the answers.
Now I understood why I couldn't sleep alone at a young age.
November 9, 2025
Lembro-me de que esse eu li e reli várias vezes. Era um dos livros bem conhecidos dessa série, que praticamente todo mundo na minha sala leu. Era incrível como esses livros conseguiam mexer com a gente. Eles não subestimavam a nossa inteligência (ao contrário, nos desafiavam a usá-la!) e não tinham enredo simples e bobinhos, mas intrincadas tramas de suspense e mistério. Era incrível!
November 24, 2011
Borrowed from a co-worker, had this laying around in the office. Started reading out of curiosity but end up getting hooked. Strangely, I got mad when people disturb me while I was solving the puzzles, even though I read this in office lol
December 30, 2015
why did i read this
it just made me feel stupid
it just made me feel stupid
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews