Puzzling It Out
Judy Freeman, Curriculum Connections -- School Library Journal, 1/10/2008
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Want your students to think analytically, make inferences and predictions, solve problems, and use logic? Give them mysteries. Many of us were raised on a literary diet of the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and, starting in 1963, America's Sherlock Holmes in sneakers, Encyclopedia Brown.
You'll note with pleasure that Donald J. Sobol's eternal 10-year-old sleuth is back after a hiatus of 25 years with a new set of 10 mini-mysteries in Encyclopedia Brown Cracks the Case (Dutton, 2007; Gr. 2-6). That sneering bully, Bugs Meany, is still around, stirring up trouble in the neighborhood, and there's the usual tantalizing array of local crimes, criminals, and cases that Leroy solves with deductive reasoning. Read aloud a chapter or two for your class to solve.
Remember the satisfaction you felt when you figured out your first Encyclopedia Brown mystery without peeking at the solution at the back of the book? Here's a new winner to help your readers hone their puzzle-solving skills: The Puzzling World of Winston Breen, by puzzle master and first time children's book author, Eric Berlin (Putnam, 2007; Gr. 4-7).
For his younger sister Katie's 10th birthday, 12-year-old Winston gives her what he thinks is an empty wooden box, which he bought at Penrose's Curio Shop. "You bought me an empty box?" Katie asks suspiciously, sure he's playing a trick on her, as he has done on birthdays past.
Winston is a puzzle fanatic who looks for puzzles and patterns in everything. But when Katie finds a secret bottom to the box and pulls out four thin little rectangular wooden strips with words on them, he insists he is not responsible for putting them there, and can't figure out their message.
Turns out the box came from the estate of the late Livia Little, whose father, Walter Fredericks, was a wealthy inventor who helped build their town. To get his four feuding children to reconcile, Mr. Fredericks gave each of them a different set of clues in the form of wooden strips, hoping they'd work together to discover where he hid a valuable, jeweled ring. They never did. Now, 25 years later, his sole surviving child, the town librarian Violet Lewis, has been threatened by anonymous treasure hunters.
Winston, his two friends, and his sister join forces with Mrs. Lewis, two cops, a young female reporter for the local newspaper, and two unsavory treasure hunters, who have also acquired some of the puzzle pieces, to solve the mystery.
Winston likes to solve a brainteaser every day. Lucky for us, he provides at least one intriguing example per chapter, including word puzzles and math problems. You can stop at each one and have your students work out the solution. Try this one from Chapter 3:
WORD SCRAMBLE PUZZLE
These six words can all be scrambled to make new words. Which one does not belong and why?
AMONG BEARD CHEAP
LUMP MILE PAGER
If your students (and you) get stumped, the answers to all 18 puzzles are at the back of the book. You can also go to www.winstonbreen.com to download and print out each brainteaser, or to find a slew of additional conundrums on Winston's Puzzle Blog. Children can even send the character letters (and puzzles) at winston@winstonbreen.com.
Ever the jokester, Winston rearranges the sign at his sister’s birthday party, turning "Happy Birthday Katie" into "Hippie Had Bratty Yak." Have your students write out their full names and see what hidden messages they can find in the letters.
Astute and tenacious readers will enjoy unscrambling and explaining the 24 clever poems in Robin Hirsch's FEG: Stupid (Ridiculous) Poems for Intelligent Children (Illus. by Ha; Little, Brown, 2002; Gr. 5-8) that employ palindromes, homonyms, spoonerisms, and many other wordplay tricks. In the introduction, Hirsch advises readers to act like detectives, armed with dictionary, thesaurus, a book of quotations, and even a dictionary of slang.
Readers who thrive on problem-solving novels like Blue Balliett's Chasing Vermeer (Scholastic, 2004) and Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game (Dutton, 1978; Gr. 5-8) will enjoy the fast-paced intrigue and kids-save-the-world theme of The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (Little, Brown, 2007; illus. by Carson Ellis, Gr. 4-7). “ARE YOU A GIFTED CHILD LOOKING FOR SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES?” That newspaper ad brings together four resourceful and multitalented children, all of whom are orphans or alone in the world, to become secret agents for Mr. Benedict, a genius who has uncovered a nefarious international mind-control plot.
There's Reynie Muldoon, whose logical thinking helps him solve puzzles; Kate Wetherall, who can climb anywhere and fix anything with her tool-filled bucket; tenacious Sticky Washington, who has total recall of everything he's ever read; and the diminutive Constance Contraire, whose crabby and belligerent demeanor is her greatest gift. Their mission will be to infiltrate the exclusive Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened and to discover how and why the school's founder is transmitting subliminal doctrinaire messages into people's brains.
In describing the special gifts possessed by these four intrepid children, ask your students to make a list of their own singular and perhaps unrecognized talents and describe how these attributes have helped them solve problems and puzzles in their own lives.
Judy Freeman (www.JudyReadsBooks.com) is the author of Books Kids Will Sit Still For 3 (Libraries Unlimited, 2006) and Once Upon a Time: Using Storytelling, Creative Drama, and Reader's Theater with Children in Grades PreK-6 (Libraries Unlimited, 2007).
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