Major Fun Award 2015 - "Dots incredible" - by Bernie DeKoven
Click this link to our review by Major Fun Awards.
Awarded to the Greatest Dot-to-Dot Adventure Book #2

"What seems to us to be consistently amazing is how he keeps coming up with new kinds of dot-to-dot puzzles. Some of the challenges are really challenging. It's not just dot-to-dot, it's dot-to-OMG-to-dot..."
There are four-page puzzles. Three-page puzzles. There's a puzzle where you connect the coordinates and another where instead of dots you have words, and you connect them alphabetically.
And then there's the adventure – a picture story that only becomes clear after you've completed all the puzzles. One reward after another.
This is the second in Kalvatis’ Dot-to-Dot Adventure series. The first also earned a Major Fun award.
And in all of his work, it's quality of the drawings themselves that makes the fun so major: always surprisingly masterful, and deeply satisfying when you complete them – satisfying enough to entice your resident artist (my wife) to making that extra artist effort to color them in.

Major Fun Award 2013 - "Dots Terrific!" - by Bernie DeKoven
Click this link to our review by Major Fun Awards.
Awarded to the Greatest Dot-to-Dot Adventure Book #1

We have followed David Kalvitis’ adventures in Dot-to-Dot-land for more than six years now. We gave our first Major Fun award to his Greatest Dot-to-Dot books in 2007, our second to his Super Challenge series in 2010, and this review makes our third. Each time we consider his books our admiration for his talent as an artist, his playfulness, and his puzzlecraft deepens.
In his Greatest Dot-to-Dot Adventure, Book 1, Kalvitis takes his impressive collection of ingenious and challenging variations on the theme of dot-to-dot to a new level.
As in his previous works (I’ve learned to think of them as works, as in works of art, because as you complete the connections you find yourself having created something surprisingly rich in detail – so rich that you find yourself wanting to continue beyond the dots, adding color, shade, tone, in appreciation of the over-all excellence of Kalvaltis’ art), Kalvaltis offers a fascinatingly varied collection of dot-to-dot challenges.
In the Greatest Dot-to-Dot Adventure Book, not only are there:
2 – 3 Page Connect the Dots
1 – 4 Page Connect the Dots
1 – ABC Set Dot-to-Dots
1 – Alpha Dots Connect the Dots
1 – Arrows Connect Puzzle
1 – Circuits Connect Puzzle
1 – Compass Connect the Dots
2 – Crazy Dot-to-Dots
1 – Field of Dot-to-Dots
1 – Match Up Connect Puzzle
1 – No Dots Connect Puzzles
1 – Numbers Connect Puzzles
1 – Odd/Even Dot-to-Dots
5 – Scene Dot-to-Dots
3 – Sets Connect the Dots
15 – Stars Connect the Dots
1 – Symbols Dot-to-Dots
but the puzzles are also linked to each other, forming an overall challenge that requires you to solve each and every puzzle before you achieve the ultimate satisfaction of completing your dot-to-dot adventure. Each, as I said, and every puzzle. An adventure, in deed.
Admirable work. Major fun.

Major Fun Award 2010 - "Dots even more amazing" - by Bernie DeKoven
Click this link to our review by Major Fun Awards.
Awarded to the Greatest Dot-to-Dot Super Challenge Books

Might I suggest that before you read further you refer to a review I wrote about two years ago, called “Dot’s Amazing“? Apparently, I just might.
Today, I am pleased to inform you that since that review or Dot-to-Dotty friend David Kalvitis has produced an impressively playworthy passel of new, and arguably more amazing Dot-to-Dot books, introducing yet more puzzling works of dot-connecting art.
With his most recent additions, the variety of puzzles now includes: 2 page spreads with up to 1,490 dots, ABC Sets where you have to connect labeled sets in numerical order, Alpha Dots where, instead of Dots, you connect words in alphabetical order; the significantly challenging Arrows puzzles where you navigate thru an entire page of arrows, the often exacerbating Compass puzzles where you connect dots according to compass directions (make one mistake and you’re likely to find yourself connecting the dots on your walls), the Symbols puzzles where you connect different sets of symbols, and the Numbers puzzles where you find yourself attempting to connect an entirely dotless page of many, many numbers.
If you haven’t tried any of his amazing Connect-the-Dots puzzles, don’t worry, no matter which of his now 10 different books you purchase, you will find yourself gleefully connected to a series of satisfying and always surprising challenges that redefine the very nature of the Connect-the-Dots puzzle. If you have already gone through a book or two or several many, then you’ll need no further incentive to explore his latest contribution to Connect-the-Dotly lore. Kalvitis’ puzzles are no mere child’s play (though some mere children might think so), they’re art. And they’re fun, too.

Major Fun Award 2007 - "Dots Amazing!" - by Bernie DeKoven
Click this link to our review by Major Fun Awards.
Awarded to the Greatest Dot-to-Dot Super Challenge Book #5

"You need a real artist to take a simple children’s puzzle, like Connect-the-Dots, and transform it into something worthy of mature, adult-worthy consideration. A real artist."
And that’s just what David Kalvitis is, an artist. And that’s just what he’s accomplished with his many Dot-to-Dot books.
Let me give you a few examples.
Stars puzzles: You start at number 1, as you would expect, and continue connecting dots in order until you come to a star. Then you have to look for the next number, which could be anywhere else in the puzzle, and continue from that number to the next star. And on and on, number-to-number-to-star. Jumping around from place to place on the puzzle, you really have no idea what you’re drawing, sometimes until the very last star.
Arrows: You see this big field of arrows – no dots at all. Just arrows. So there’s absolutely no visual hints about what the puzzle is about. You look for a circled arrow and start there, following where it points until you come to another arrow, and you take off in that direction. Of course, if you make a mistake, just one, small, easily explicable error, you soon find youself wandering realms of graphic chaos. Which is why, despite Kalvatis’ heartfelt recommendations that all his puzzles be done with a marker, we find ourselves frequently recommending a soft pencil with a very good eraser.
Compass: Here, you get nothing but an array of dots with a few symbols sprinkled in hither and yon. You look for a star and, then read the directions printed above the puzzle. And I do mean directions. Like, from the star, go: N (North(, and then Wx2 (two dots west), and then SWx2, and then on and on and on, and if you do it exactly right, you’ll end up at an A. And then, from the A, you start on the next line of instructions….
For an elementary school teacher, the different puzzle types involve skills that are closely tied to the mathematics curriculum. For the rest of us, they are an invitation to return to a deeply satisfying, often remarkably peaceful pastime.
These are but three of the innovative, challenging and inviting variations of connect-the-dots Kalvitis has created for us. And, if you’re a social puzzler, it turns out that many of them can be solved cooperatively – especially the big puzzles, or puzzles like the Star puzzles that you solve in segments.
There are five volumes of the “Greatest Dot-to-Dot” series, so far. The first four are a great introduction to the wide variety of puzzle types. The fifth volume is most appropriately called “Super Challenge,” where you’ll find puzzles that span two pages and hundreds and hundreds of dots. There are also four volumes of Kalvitis’ Newspaper Dot-to-Dot puzzles – smaller, but every bit as innovative.
Each puzzle is a work of art in its own right. When you complete a puzzle, you are rewarded with images that are themselves often surprisingly vivid, sometimes rich in detail, sometimes spare and subtle. Often drawn in perspective. Never stiff. Never blocky. Always surprising.