K-DRON is both a remarkably simple and complex structure. Its basic form has a square base, 11 multifaceted sides and a diamond-shaped face with a 45 degree angle of inclination. Viewed from above, it is a square within a square. The surface structure is both symmetrical and asymmetrical, concave and convex. K-dron possesses exceptional optical properties. Several K-DRONs placed next to each other create a dynamic number of possible patterns. Because of the opposite but complementary nature of its structure, two basic K-DRONs placed on top of each other form a cube. Interaction with its form reveals the fascinating versatility of the K-DRON and its potential product application. K-DRON has its own geometry, which, once discovered, cannot be improved - just as one cannot improve a cube. Thus, K-DRON must itself be recognized as a new spatial form to be examined and commercially utilized. Its structure is intrinsically related to the symmetry of such common forms as the cube, pyramid, octahedron and dodecahedron.

This us an exciting new puzzle with more than 38,000 solutions! The K-DRON game involves combining the K-DRON pieces into different patterns and trying to reproduce different patterns. A color coded booklet is included with the K-DRON puzzle which helps guide you through the different designs and levels of skill. As a lucky owner of the K-Dron™ game you can play an exciting extension of the original game on the Internet. The object of the K-Dron™ game is to design or reproduce various patterns using 8 K-Drons. With only 4 K-Drons of one color and 4 of another color, there can be 38,416 possible combinations! This family game has 3 levels of difficulty and on the Internet you can race against time or play against a friend

Includes eight 3-D pieces, exercise booklet and fact sheet.  Recommended for ages 7 and older. Not suitable for children under 3 years old due to small parts which may represent a choking hazard.

www.k-dron.com

Zoe Ricardo's New Toy Reviews

Leapfrog's portable learning game console is a great handheld unit that you just Plug into your tv set or turn on in the car or anywhere and play. Maximize learning by connecting the Leapster L-Max™ handheld directly to your TV for expanded game play and learning! Dual-screen action allows your child to interact with the handheld screen and see the learning unfold on the TV screen. The stylus allows you to have direct contact with the screen just like using a pen and paper! No other handheld game system has that. And the full Leapster and Leapster L-Max library works with the L-Max and allows you to play action-packed games while learning essential school subject skills!  The Leapster L-Max handheld lets you play anywhere and learn everywhere! Plug it into your TV and grow! The TV expands the learning lessons!  Dual screen learning advantage takes learning to the MAX! For example, you can learn to write letters on the L-Max handheld screen and the letters you write appear on the TV and star in an animated story!

New Game Cartridge for 2008
Scholastic Get Puzzled

One of the most well-designed of the Leapster games. Our test kids, ages 5 and 7, could not put it down and really fussed when test time was over.
You can boost your brain power by solving hundreds of puzzles that challenge your thinking skills. Kids get to guide spaceships, build bridges, create scary monsters and more while playing challenging puzzles that help develop their logic, language and problem solving skills.

Toddlers 4 and up can use their curiosity and logical reasoning skills to solve everyday problems by investigating all sorts of possibilities. You eventually develop unexpected solutions and creative problem-solving strategies.  Matching develops early logic and reasoning skills and is a component of early math and literacy. You can match like objects, shapes, patterns, pictures and stories, letters to sounds and pictures to words.  With all the htings you can learn,
it’s important to cultivate the memory skills you’ll need to retain it. Memory games and strategies can help you flex your 'memory muscle'.

This game has an emphasis on memory skills. For example; Monster Maker will show you a picture of a monster, then scramble the monster traits (eyes, legs, arms, etc.) and then you need to reassemble the monster. Word Bid challenges you to find words hidden in a block of letters. There is another game called Critter River on the cartridge where you have to use logic to build a bridge for the little creatures to cross, and this is easy to use with the stylus and can be quite challenging and entertaining for the children. Cosmic Crossing lets you pilot a spaceship across the galaxy using your logic to find the best pathway.  About Face is a puzzle wherein you have to accessorize faces in a specific order. This is one of the most challenging puzzles, and also one of the most fun ones.

All Leapster games work with all Leapster Learning Game Systems (Leapster, Leapster L-Max™ and Leapster TV™).

For more information go to www.leapfrog.com

Vijay Bannerjee Chooses Brainteasers from ThinkFun

Treasure Quest Search for hidden treasure! But, finding the gold masks is just the beginning. You must escape with the treasure safely in hand, or risk becoming trapped in the temple forever!!. Players dodge dead-ends, follow cryptic paths, and deal with unmovable artifacts to create a successful escape form an ancient Egyptian tomb. Features: 40 challenge cards with solutions, 4 levels of play ranging from Beginner to Expert, Aztec Temple Game Grid, 1 Treasure Hunter Game Piece, 8 Arrow Pieces, 8 Blocking Pieces, 4 Gold Mask Treasure Pieces, and Game-Go Bag. Ages: 8 and up   Price: $20

Cover Your Tracks Cover your tracks to avoid being followed! In this high stakes spatial development game, kids must cover their tracks on a journey through mud, sand, snow and cement. First, kids select one of 20 challenge cards. Then they place all four pieces on the game tray to cover their tracks. As the game play gets more challenging, players will put their spatial development skills to the test on a journey across different terrains. Cover Your Tracks™ is an entertaining and engaging mind-challenging game that will keep kids coming back for more. So step lightly; your only hope is to cover your tracks! Features: 20 challenge cards with solutions, 4 levels of play ranging from Beginner to Expert, 4 game pieces (red, green, orange, blue) and game tray with storage bag for easy travel. Ages: 8 and up    Price:$17

Claire Elizabeth Whitney's Pick of the Month
''Lara Croft Tomb Raider - Anniversary''
from Eidos Video Games

For Playstation2, Wii, X-Box 360 and PC

Celebrate ten years of Tomb Raider and Lara Croft with ''Tomb Raider: Anniversary'', a new version of the original action adventure inspired by the original Tomb Raider video game, one of the greatest action adventure games of all time. This is an upgrade of the Tomb Raider game from 1996, using an improved version of the Legend game engine and it includes all of the original 'worlds' from Tomb Raider. You will notice many, many changes and improvements in the game play and story plot as you continue on your death-defying adventure.

The story begins in 1945 in Los Alamos, New Mexico when a mushroom cloud engulfs an abandoned town, uncovering a crystalline structure, sending an unidentified winged creature flying out. Fifty-one years later in Calcutta, India the main story opens: Lara Croft, daughter of Lord Richard Croft is hired by renowned businesswoman Jacqueline Natla through an introduction by her long-time adversary Larson. Natla reveals she has found the location of one of the three pieces that comprise the Atlantean Scion, a mystical artifact buried in the heart of an ancient city, and she wants Lara to retrieve it for her. Lara, sitting back leisurely, leaps from her seat upon hearing this revelation. Fueled as much by her, and her father's, desires to find the artifact, Lady Croft travels on commission by Natla to the icy mountains of Peru to search for it in the lost city of Vilcabamba.

Through the Lost Valley teeming with thought-to-be-extinct dinosaurs and numerous booby traps, she enters a desolate tomb, seemingly undiscovered for millennia. In a further cutscene, Lara finds the corpse of Qualopec. Observing the inscriptions on the wall, it reads that he was one of the triumvirate of god-rulers of Atlantis before it fell beneath the waves, watching over his piece of the Scion even in death. As she peers closely in awe, one of the beast-like creatures suddenly roars at her, before falling laboriously to the floor. Realizing this tomb is not uninhabited after all, Lara takes the Scion. The tomb begins to crumble, and so Lara runs for an escape in haste. Qualopec rises from his seat while Lara looks around unnerved. Fortunately, the falling debris traps him. Lara escapes, however, surfacing from the water to find Larson ready to relieve her of her hard earned work. Refusing to bestow the artifact upon him, they engage in a pulse-raising fight, Lara naturally coming out victorious. After giving Larson a good beating, he reveals that another archaeologist has been sent by Natla to look for the second piece, prompting Lara to pay a visit to Natla Technologies to search for more information. A video communication clip reveals Natla knew Lara would never disclose the artifact to her anyway, and the other archeologist, Pierre Dupont in front of the monastery she instantly recognizes; St. Francis Folly, in the Greek Isles.

Here she races against Pierre Dupont, a rival archaeologist. Lara uncovers the Tomb of Tihocan, the second of the three god-rulers where she finds his empty coffin, the whereabouts of the body unknown. Pierre then catches up with Lara, threatening to kill her unless she gives him Qualopec's piece of the Scion. Lara refuses, attacking him until he flees from the tomb. However, two centaurs then awake, trampling Pierre to death. After escaping Tihocan's tomb, she leaves for the Sanctuary of the Scion located in Egypt for the third and final piece. As soon as she obtains it, she leaves the Sanctuary and connects the pieces. She blacks out and has a vision about the dawn of time where the god-kings stood in counsel over the third ruler, revealed to be Natla herself. She is being expelled from their sacred order and condemned for unleashing Atlantis' own armies against it and trying to usher in the Seventh Age through the use of the Scion. She is then encased in the crystalline structure which was later uncovered in the blast in Los Alamos.
The new graphically improved Sanctuary of the Scion.

Natla then calmly takes the now complete piece away from the still shocked Lara, clutched by Natla's henchman "KOLD". Lara asks her what the Seventh Age was, Natla asking her how far she would go to find out. Natla orders her henchmen to kill her quickly. "Kid", another of Natla's henchmen goes to shoot Lara, but Larson pushes him out the way, purposely missing her with his shotgun. Lara escapes, diving over the edge of the cliff into the lake as Larson fires. Lara pursues Natla on her motorbike, managing to infiltrate Natla's boat undetected. They soon dock to an island which is a remnant of Atlantis, where Natla has mining operations. Inside she meets Larson again, holding a key trying to stop her from continuing further. Larson taunts her, betting she will not shoot him. Insistent on impeding her path, he tells her she would never shoot him because, "that's just not who you are." Lara replies, "I'm not who you think I am". This resulted in Lara shooting him three times in the chest. Larson falls to his knees, and lays down to the ground gasping for air, his hand reaching out to Lara for help. Lara rests her hand on his chest and turns him over, taking the key from his pocket. Looking at her hands horrified at what she has done and competely forgetting that she thought that it was for the good of all man, she vigorously dusts off the imaginary blood on her hands, greatly remorsing from her first human kill thus far. As she continues through, one of Natla's henchmen stands guarding the next chamber wielding a knife. Lara warns him, telling him he will end up like Larson if he does not let her past. Another of Natla's henchmen "Kid" emerges from the shadows with a pair of uzis. Lara shoots them in her defense, however, KOLD stabs Kid so he can kill Lara himself. KOLD pins Lara against the wall by her throat, but she is saved when Kid kills KOLD with his uzis from afar before dying of the stab wound. Lara finally catches up with Natla who has activated the Scion, along with the pyramid buried beneath it. Natla tells Lara she has reached the top, that it takes three to rule, that Tihocan and Qualopec were too weak to destroy what stands in the way of the Seventh Age, but Lara has the strength to claim the seat beside Natla's rule.

Lara looks at her hands then apologizes to her father before shooting and destroying the Scion. Natla charges at her in rage, pushing her off the platform, with Lara pulling Natla down with her. Lara grabs the platform on the opposite side with her grapple, Natla falling to her doom beneath the depths of the lava.  Natla then confronts her, still alive, accusing Lara of having a heart as black as hers, after the blood she has spilled. Natla clutches Lara by her throat, stating she cannot be killed, and that she is immortal. The final boss battle is against Natla herself, which ends with Lara pinning her under a falling pillar. Natla screeches in agony as Lara escapes the now crumbling pyramid, the island violently erupting. Reaching the shore, Lara dives into the sea and gets into the boat she used to get to the Lost City. She looks back at the exploding island, then at her bloodstained hands as she leaves the erupting island behind. Lara smiles, realizing she really did kill Larson for the safety of all man, and sails off into the horizon.
 
 

Bobby Whitfield's Kid's Movie of the Month
“THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES”
 Reviewed by Andrew Johnson

 Now here’s a worthwhile, fantastic fairy tale for young and old alike with quite a number of things going for it. The special effects amidst the goblins and other sprite-like creatures are outstanding. In this one, young Freddie Highmore plays two roles as completely different twin brothers. The adult performers are also top drawer in this amazing tale of make-believe that holds audience's attention for a solid hour and forty minutes.

 “THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES” is an engrossing story focusing a recently single mother whose husband split with another woman and left her with two twin boys Simon and Jared ( both played by Freddie Highmore ) and their older sister Mallory ( Sarah Bolger ), a high school fencing champion. Simon is a bookish goody-goody, while Jared has fire and verve in him with a deeply troubled sole from the separation. This one will discover a hidden forbidden book which will release the villains of that other unseen world in rising up and taking over.

 This house the family has inherited, and which is where they now plan to live, is a bit weird with various objects disappearing and scampering noises arising behind the 100 year old plaster walls. It’s troubled brother Jared who finds his great great uncle’s attic laboratory, makes first contact with house brownie Thimbletack and who discovers that Arthur wrote the book about the many secrets of the unseen world. This book, sealed away under lock and key in a trunk has laid dormant for quite a while until inquisitive Jared doesn’t heed the warning note attached to the book, breaks open the seal, and sets in motion occurrences that will be detrimental to that world and the real world.

The cast is a substantial one in addition to Highmore there is Mary-Louise Parker as Helen, the mother, veteran British actress Joan Plowright as eccentric 86 year-old Great Aunt Lucinda, and David Strathairn as Lucinda’s father 125 year-old Arthur Spiderwick, the great, great uncle of the children who started the fairy realm research and wrote the forbidden book. Nick Nolte appears in both human and non-human form as the menacing villain, the giant goblin Mulgarath, who seeks the book's secrets in order to become the most powerful being in the world. Nolte voices the character in his CGI transformations as well. The magical creatures are Thimbletack (voiced by Martin Short) and bird eating hobgoblin Hogsqueal ( voiced by Seth Rogen). The production wasfilmedin Quebec and the locations and landscapes are gorgeous.

 Misunderstandings are ever present in families, this one no exception, but there is always the underlying love that manifests itself when trouble is at hand and all must stick together for the better good. The fantastic truth concerning the Spiderwick estate, prtected from the evil outside with a magic circle of mushrooms, and of the bizarre creatures that inhabit it makes for a most enjoyable and well-spent time at the cinema.

 Mark Waters directed this excellent film based on the best-selling fantasy adventure series of books, “THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES,” with its rich fantasy, strong family emotions and ties, and intense dramatic action, that shows how a group of youngsters will tackle creatures of an unseen world and do battle with them in order to save their world and their own as well.

This is a film not to be missed for the youngsters and the adults as well..
 

The Players:  Freddie Highmore, Mary-Louise Parker, Joan Plowright, David Strathairn, Nick Nolte, and Sarah Bolger

The Filmmakers:
Directed by Mark Waters
Screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum, and John Sayles
Based on the book by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
Director of Photography: Caleb Deschanel
Music composed by James Horner

Copyright 2008
Black Cat Media Associates, Ltd.
All Rights Reserved.
Spooky Flannagan and the SandRich Kids Copyright 2005 Black Cat Entertainment and Games.
Character Sketches by Erica Henderson