Laddergrams Galore

Laddergrams are a type of puzzle invested by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutdwidge Dodgson), the English author of the books ＂Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland＂ and ＂Through the Looking Glass.＂The goal of a laddergram is to transform the word on the top rung into the word on the bottom rung in the least number of steps. During each step, you must replace one letter in the previous word so that a new word is formed, but without changing the positions of the other letters. For example, we can achieve the alchemist’s dream of changing LEAD into GOLD in just three steps: LEAD, LOAD, GOAD, GOLD.Match wits with the Puzzlemaster on more than 100 challenging laddergrams.

Mark Kantrowitz has a 180 IQ. He has written puzzles and problems for Games Magazine, Crux Mathematicorum and Creative Computing. Mark has seven patents on everything from spelling and grammar correction to optimizing cancer surveillance and screening tests. Mark is the publisher of leading web sites about planning and paying for college. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Washington Post, Reuters, Huffington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek and Time Magazine.