ME & THE MAGIC CUBE

A warm salute to a maddening marvel and its inventor, Ernő Rubik.

In Fehr’s tale, translated from German, the light-skinned young narrator pulls one of the ubiquitous Magic Cubes out of the toy box and, after joining Dad and several school friends in fruitlessly trying to “solve” it, bones up on the puzzle’s 1974 invention, its ingenious inner construction, and its Hungarian inventor. Along the way, our protagonist also learns about similar puzzles in different shapes and sizes (including one that uses Braille), international competitions, and other tidbits, including how to follow the explicit directions that successful twisters have developed and published. “Speedcubers” have aligned all the colors in a little over three seconds, computers in a mere 0.3 seconds. Frustrated readers who have already wrestled with one of the 450 million cubes sold to date probably won’t be surprised to learn that a standard cube has over 43 quintillion possible configurations—but they may be heartened by the fact (electronically demonstrated in 2010) that any cube can be solved in 20 moves or fewer. In the illustrations, helpful diagrams and exploded views of cubes alternate with scenes of a multiracial cast of smiling, wide-eyed young people happily applying themselves to the challenge: “On your mark, get set, cube!”

A buoyant, stimulating explainer.