Yucky Riddles

Alison Mews is co-ordinator of the Centre for Instructional Services at
Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Kids love riddles, and these attractive riddle books will certainly
appeal to emergent readers. The riddles are a combination of questions
and knock-knock jokes, with the usual mix of the ridiculous, the silly,
and even the slightly gross. Many are based on altered words: e.g.,
“scream cheese” is the answer to “What do witches put on
bagels?”

These Level 3 readers are intended to provide longer and more complex
sentences than the previous levels; they also provide visual clues for
kids who are reading alone.

Each book presents 29 riddles—one per page, with the question at the
top and the answer beneath a full-page illustration. Unlike those in
many riddle books, the answers are not printed upside down.

The illustrations are colourful and cartoonish, and extend the
silliness by taking the jokes to a comic extreme or by adding an
entirely different dimension. For instance, the celebrants of a pet
budgie’s “bird-day” are gleeful cats with evil intent; and the
illustration of “How do you make a witch itch?” (by taking away the
w) shows an angry witch glaring at her black cat, which is scratching
fleas into the air with a sheepish expression. These illustrations will
certainly captivate the intended audience and entice reluctant readers
to persevere. Recommended.