Books > The Canberra Puzzle Books

Have a bus full of noisy students, or a car full of restless children, to entertain on your trip to Canberra? These puzzle books are the ideal companions on your trip to our national capital. Fun, and learning, at the same time!

There are two books in this series:

The Canberra Puzzle Book for kids aged 11 to adults (ISBN 978-0-9872152-8-4)

The Junior Canberra Puzzle Book, for kids aged 5 to 10

Contents

Both books cover the history of the Canberra region, from pre-European settlement to the modern day. The books have been checked by local historians for accuracy.

Subjects include :

• local Aboriginal culture
• early pioneer settlers
• the selection of Canberra as our capital
• Walter Burley Griffin’s plan
• life in Canberra during Word War II
• flag and emblems of the city
• early maps of the city turned into mazes
• flora and fauna of the region

There are find-a-words, mazes, crosswords, story crosswords, clueless crosswords, colouring-in, dot-to-dots, codes, and spot-the-differences, amongst others!

The Canberra Puzzle Book sample pages

• Building the Capital word search
• 1965 Map Maze

The Junior Canberra Puzzle Book sample pages

• Capital Construction Muddle
• Railways Maze

Ordering your books

Both The Canberra Puzzle Book and The Junior Canberra Puzzle Book are available as small puzzle books (B5 size), and as blackline masters.

To order the B5 workbooks of either book, please contact me, or visit one of the venues listed below when you're here. I sell them direct to the public ($6.60 per book + postage), and wholesale. If you have a shop, contact me for wholesale pricing. I accept PayPal and direct deposit payments.

The B5 books are available from:

• Australian Choice, Canberra Centre, Civic
• The Botanical Bookshop, Australian National Botanic Gardens
• The National Library Bookshop, National Library of Australia, Barton
• Canberra Visitors Centre, Regatta Point
• Parliament Shop, Parliament House, Canberra
• The Bower Birds, Gold Creek

Review

This book is a delight. Innovative, inspired, engaging — and right on target in the way it communicates complex topics with clarity and with fun.

Heritage is about learning to read the rich library of our surroundings so that we better understand our past, and our own responsibilities to the future. It’s a tall order as heritage professionals will agree. Yet here Denise Sutherland has produced the essential primer for this process, conveying accurate information in the most enjoyable and arresting format, a puzzle book that includes crosswords, mazes, codes, ‘what’s missing’ pictures, and my favourite — the silly story.

This is a book for kids — but it is really for us all, I don’t think there is anyone who could resist trying at least some of these [puzzles].

Dr Lenore Coltheart, heritage consultant

Blackline masters

These A4, wire-bound blackline master books are designed to be photocopied. Each book has 28 pages of puzzles, and answers at the back. They are great resources for school libraries, hospitals, youth groups, and even hotels and restaurants. When you buy one, you are granted a site licence to photocopy the book as much as you need, at your school or organisation.

They are printed on demand in Australia, by Lulu.com. Shipping is around $9.

• The Canberra Puzzle Book — spiral bound blackline master — $39.95 AUD
• The Junior Canberra Puzzle Book — spiral bound blackline master — $39.95 AUD

Where did it all start?

In 2004 Sutherland Studios won an ACT Heritage Grant which allowed me to research, write and publish The Canberra Puzzle Book in 2005. As part of the grant, I gave a free copy of the book to every Year 6 student in ACT government schools. It is now in its fourth reprint.

In 2006 I wrote and published its companion volume, The Junior Canberra Puzzle Book, for younger ‘puzzle historians’.