Pokemon: Ultimate Handbook Paperback – October 1, 2008

Let me start with the fact that I know nothing about Pokemon... And more than likely, I will never ever know anything about it other than my son thinks Pokemon is cool. So, if he likes it, so do I!This book was one of his Christmas gifts that I had purchased for him and he was so excited when he saw it. He said that it helps him beat the Pokemon game on his Nintendo DS because he now knows their weaknesses and strengths (apparently while playing the DS, a player can chose certain weapons and personalize fights?).To rate this book, I would have to give it a 5 star simply because my son likes it so much.

I purchased this book for my son as a new year gift a year ago, and he really likes it as the book contains everything that he wants to know about Pokemon.The rest of Pokemon handbooks (dictionary) cost the same amount of money but contain almost half or even less information. My son has this book for about a year now, and he still reads it often. Everytime he sees a new Pokeman in a movie or a book, he would look it up in the Ultimate Handbook.My son asked my assistance to add his review because he highly recommend this book.

I'm going to get straight to the point here. I bought this item in hopes it would be a handy Pokedex(like a Pokemon description thingy). This is a nice book. Some is poorly put together (the pictures of Porygon and Porygon2 are switched) but as someone who really plays Pokemon it is not useful in that it does not tell HOW each pokemon evolves or even where to obtain them. Theres a lot of new Pokemon and they evolve in the games where you have to hold items and such..I probably make no sense considering this will only be helpful to those who play the games. If I were to give you an Example..take the poekmon Oddish. Oddish evolves into the pokemon Gloom by level and once into Gloom, gives the choice of either evolving into Bellossom, or Vileplume depending on the type of stone you use on it. I've been playing these games for some time now and not too many people could tell you what I just did off the tops of their heads. Now that there is even more new pokemon with tons of different evolutions it's getting harder to remember them all. That's where the "Ultimate Pokemon Handbook" should come in right? Well it didn't live up to my expectations despite the reviews I read. So I figured I'd create one that warned those who play Pokemon games like I do.Hope this helped

My son is a huge Pokemon fan and a reluctant reader. However, he has read this book so much, that I ordered another copy, as the first one is getting pretty worn. I see that other reviewers have mentioned the binding being a problem. We haven't had that experience. It's held together through lots of reading and trips in the backpack. This is really my son's first reference book. He checks it very often, when he needs to look something up and he also enjoys reading through the pages, checking out the different Pokemon. Highly recommend.

Desperate, baffled, and up against the holiday deadlines, I got the Pokemon Ultimate Handbook for my five-year-old grandson last Christmas. What a hit! Riveted, he wouldn't be parted from it. His Poke-motivation was so great that -- unprompted and unsupervised -- he taught himself to read fluently, by patiently sounding out all the unfamiliar words, names, lineages, and whatnot. Now six, Billy reads fluently (I think he has memorized the book). His mom, my daughter, is giving me all kinds of points for this. For our young enthusiast, this book was far more absorbing than the usual reading primers.

My daughter ordered this book. She is a Pokemon Fanatic! She checked out a similar book from the library and wanted a book like it to have at home. So, she had money saved up and wanted to spend it on Amazon and this is one of the items she chose to purchase. It arrived within a few days, in perfect condition and is exactly what she wanted. It's a must have book for any and all ages and Pokemon fans and collectors.

My 10 year old has just recently become obsessed with Pokemon so I ordered this book for her after she saw it at the Scholastic book fair at her school. It was much cheaper here than there. She loves this book. I know nothing about Pokemon but she has had this book in her hands almost nonstop. It is new but it is already well worn from how much she uses it. I highly recommend it for the Pokemon fans in your household!

I would give this 4 stars - it's reasonably well-written and well-organized - but for there is a newer version available now called "Pokemon Essentials" which is identical save for having more than 100 additional pokemon. My son got both for Xmas - he only refers to "Essentials" now.This version is fine, but should probably be WAY discounted b/c it is out-of-date.