Recommended Books
For Beginners
The Chess Tactics Workbook, Al Woolum offers 160 pages of puzzles (6 per page) focused on mates in one, two, or three moves. It’s an excellent choice for beginners of all ages due to its minimal text and structured increase in difficulty.
An additional resource for early learners is free thanks to our friends at the St. Louis Chess Club and the World Chess Hall of Fame. Dr. Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield has created a wonderful booklet, Learn to Read & Write Chess. It is free to download or you can purchase print copies for just $2.
Grandmaster Murray Chandler is most known for How to Beat Your Dad at Chess (see below) but his earlier book Chess For Children is a great resource for early elementary readers as it features large type and illustrations. The fun stories might need an explanation; beginning 5- and 6-year-olds will need to be told that the alligator is pretending he beat really famous chess players. That said, it teaches the basics—board setup, piece movement, and rules—before introducing simple tactics and strategy.
This volume can be followed up by Chess Puzzles For Kids which offers 100 puzzles for older elementary students, with a slightly more advanced reading level than Chess for Children.
Jeff Coakley’s Winning Chess Strategy for Kids covers rules, basic mates, and elementary tactics, then progresses to more advanced strategies like piece development, pawn structure, and attacking the castled king. Recommended for ages 7–13.
Winning Chess Puzzles For Kids (Coakley) provides exercise sheets with more than 1000 positions, covering mates in one or two moves, and simple tactics such as forks, pins, and discovered checks
For Advanced Beginners
Chess Endgame Workbook (Todd Bardwick) National Chess Master Todd Bardwick, “The Chess Detective,” presents a workbook covering basic principles for King/Pawn, minor piece, Rook, and Queen endings, using hundreds of positions from master games. Includes 200 problems split into two skill levels: Basset Hound (novice to intermediate) and Chess Detective (intermediate to advanced).
In Chess Openings, Todd Introduces major and minor variations of common opening systems for beginner to advanced beginners. Easy-to-follow flowcharts cover three main sections: 1.e4, 1.d4, and Flank Openings.
A chess book for everyone, from eight to eighty, GM Murray Chandler’s How to Beat Your Dad at Chess explains numerous ways to beat a stronger opponent (be it a friend, clubmate – or Dad!). Recommended for older elementary and junior high ages, the book includes 50 checkmates.
How to Beat Your Dad at Chess works well with Chess Puzzles For Kids, covered above, and with Chess Tactics for Kids. This volume features 50 tactics focusing on recognizing the patterns that occur most frequently in real-life play.
For Advanced Beginners/intermediate
Continuing with the Jeff Coakley series, Winning Chess Exercises for Kids clearly explains tactics, strategy, and terminology in simple language graced by lots of illustrations and exercises.
For extra practice Winning Chess Puzzles For Kids Volume 2 provides more exercises at a slightly higher level than Volume 1.
For Teachers and Older “advanced Beginner” Students
Great Moves: Learning Chess Through History (Sunil Weeramantry, Alan Abrams, and Robert McLellan) This text blends chess instruction with history and provides portraits of many of the players and a contextual overview of the world when chess was developing into the game we know today. Chess instruction begins with a review (or an introduction, for new players) of the basics but presented in the context of when these rules and tactics were first published or widely adopted. It advances to analyze games from leading players who set the standard for today’s grandmasters. (Lexile score: 1050; grades 5 or 6 through Adult.)
Logical Chess: Move by Move (Irving Chernev) is a classic that details 33 master games, explaining each move and showing readers optimal piece placement. A perennial best-seller, it’s recommended for teachers, and for older children and adults.
For Players Rated 1000+
Best Lessons of a Chess Coach (Sunil Weeramantry with Ed Eusebi) An extension of the classic Best Lessons of a Chess Coach, this volume invites the reader into a renowned teacher’s classroom to experience the logic and artistry of great chess games. Sunil Weeramantry lectures on top grandmaster games and his own, providing aspiring players with winning tools. Recommended for USCF 1000+ players with a middle school reading level and above.
