Now Available: The Big Book of Little Princess Mazes

After finishing Hidden-Path Mazes in February of 2013, I intended to stop designing maze books and to move on to other things. As I told my daughter-in-law in early 2014, none of the ten maze books I had designed from 2011 to 2013 had sold well. Then I mentioned that of those low-selling books, the one with a train theme and story, Casey Loves Trains (And Like Mazes), had sold the best. She commented that a book of princess mazes would sell better than a maze book with a train story. I was intrigued.

When my daughter had suggested I do the book of train mazes, I was initially resistant--I did not  think I could do such a book. Trains are one-dimensional and mazes are two dimensional. Having figured out a way to do a book of train mazes, I was confident that I could do a book of princess mazes. Furthermore, it seemed to be an entertaining challenge. After finishing some other projects, I started to seriously work on the the book in May. The inspiration for a narrative came from two granddaughters, one of whom proudly announced that she was a picky eater and another who asked her mother if she could have a unicorn. Two months and a few hundred hours later, The Big Book of Little Princess Mazes iss complete and ready for sale on Create Space and Amazon.

The blurb on Amazon and Create Space reads:

The Big Book of Little Princess Mazes is big, with over 100 pages of mazes that will entertain and delight little girls for hours. The mazes provide illustrations for four stories of little girls who want to be princesses. Natalie searches for fairies, Maria discovers how to act like a princess, Claire tells a silly story of a mermaid princess, and Emma asks her mother if she can have a unicorn. The mazes are visually attractive, with many making use of tessellation patterns. They are simple enough so that no solutions are provided; any child should be able to work them with a bit of patience and trial and error.

The Introduction to the book is here.

In most of my previous maze books, much of my effort was focused on discovering tessellations or finding clever ways to hide a maze. The focus was not on what the reader would like but on some challenge of designing the book. For this book I designed no new maze typefaces. Rather I used the library of maze designs I had created for my previous dozen maze books, a library that contains somewhere between five hundred and a thousand designs, Because I was not designing new ways of displaying mazes, I was able focus on developing a story narrative and considering what would entertain children who might buy the book. I hope that those who buy the book will enjoy it.