The book was different than what I had expected. Eachcrossword is prefaced with a brief (1 page) essay on the state orregion in question and the answers are provided on a word list at the bottom of the puzzle. It was not as challenging as I had hoped for my children. However, it was nice that it was self-contained and I did not have to worry about having additional reference material available.

This Crossword America Series is a really great source of reading comprehension exercises for intermediate grades students. But you have to make one modification: get rid of the included word lists. If you don't do this, many students will just read the clues, count the letters and plug in the most likely words. They won't read the passage - a major buzz killer. If you clip the word list they will have to read the passage to solve the puzzle (unless they're already social studies wizards). I also have them underline the answers when they find them in the reading passages. After they got over the initial shock of having no word list to plug in answers from, the students I work with found they rather enjoyed this exercise. For slightly younger students the "Science Crosswords" series is also great. That series is even better because there aren't any word lists to clip.