The Great Book of Optical Illusions

Reviewed: April 16, 2004
By: compiled by Al Seckel
Publisher: Firefly Book
304 pages, $24.95

Is seeing believing? This is certainly the book to make you question that idea. The more than 280 full page illustrations in this book certainly challenge the eye and puzzle the mind. Some of them are deceptively simple line drawings, some complex paintings, some trick photographs, and some constructs that replicate two dimensional illusions in 3D. For some items the illusion is that something in the picture is moving, while others have hidden pictures, or images that look like different things at different moments or at different angles.

I have been getting a lot of enjoyment out of this book, partly by photocopying some of the pages and posting them on my classroom door for days at a time in order to challenge my students. It’s certainly helped to make my door a more popular place.

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