Recess Riddles

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

Kids love riddles and cartoons, and these attractive books that feature
both will definitely grab their attention. As with the previous riddle
books in the Level 3 of the Kids Can Read series (the level featuring
books that kids can read alone), the non-threatening format of one
riddle per page of illustration remains the same. The silly language
play and comical visual clues give children assistance in decoding the
reading and the riddles.

Recess Riddles covers school-based topics, while Funtime Riddles pokes
fun at kids’ leisure activities of sports and games. Some riddles use
complete sentences for the question and answer (e.g., “How did the
giraffe do in school?” “She was at the top of her class”). Others
use incomplete sentences with only the answer given, sometimes with the
conjunction and sometimes without (e.g., “Why did the girl wear
Rollerblades when she sat in the rocking chair?” “Because she wanted
to rock and roll”). Teachers could take advantage of these various
sentence structures to reinforce grammar lessons—and have a little fun
doing so.

Both books are brightly illustrated by Jane Kurisu, who frames each
picture with a multicoloured border and provides her own zany
interpretation of the riddles. In all, these books will keep them
laughing and, hopefully, reading. Recommended.