Riddles: Books For Kids

What appear to be four separate stories, one installment of each appearing on each spread of the book, turn out to intermingle and, in time, become one story. Always Macaulay is playing with our perceptions and making allusions and illusions. A robber hides out in a herd of cattle who, in turn, disrupt the passage of a train. At the train station, passengers at first are absorbed in the newspapers they are reading, but as the wait lengthens, they start playing with the newspapers and with each other. A boy, a passenger on the train, witnesses some of the events, but not all of them. Parents, previously staid and distant, have apparently changed, at least temporarily, because of their time spent waiting for the train that day. The book can be frustratingly confusing or, in the proper hands and minds, a challenge and a source of fascination.

Rhyming animal riddles feature a monkey, a sloth, and other rainforest animals hiding under the flaps in this lift-the-flap board book.

It’s sink or swim for Jack and Annie when the Magic Tree House whisks them off to the middle of the ocean. Luckily, they find a mini-submarine on a coral reef. Unluckily, they are about to meet a giant octopus and one very hungry shark. Will the dolphins save the day? Or are Jack and Annie doomed to be dinner?

This delightful board book will make the little ones in your life giggle at the absurdity of a fly on the phone and a carrot in the tub. The text’s repeated asking Have you ever seen…? preceding the refrain No way! will have toddlers yelling “No way!” themselves as you read through these silly situations. Celebrated artist Elise Gravel brings the silly to a new level in A Potato on a Bike, because really, has anyone ever seen a broccoli counting to ten or a sausage reading a book? But wait, how about a…baby being tickled?! Uh-oh, I think the answer for that is—yes way!

Is there anything more fun than a class trip to the zoo? The Gingerbread Man and his classmates don’t think so, and they get to solve riddles on a WILD scavenger hunt. They meet giraffes, monkeys, and even a fox (especially scary for a Gingerbread Man!).

But a zoo full of critters is a tricky place for a tasty cookie—even a very fast one—and the Gingerbread Man ends up separated from his friends. He needs to solve all of the riddles to catch up with his class and help someone else who is lost.

I’ll be a detective. I know that I can! I’ll solve all these clues. I’m the Gingerbread Man!

Animals galore and a trail of clues make the Gingerbread Man’s latest adventure his wildest one yet.