The Riddle Club Series

I will be adding the Riddle Club section to my site soon, either tomorrow or later this week. I have just begun to read the last book in the series.

While I thought that the Riddle Club books might be worth collecting, I have to say that they have been a pleasant surprise and better than I expected. I first noticed the series a couple years ago as I tried to find the true 1st printing of Nancy Drew #6, The Secret of Red Gate Farm. The Riddle Club series is the series listed on the 2nd page of post-text ads in the very first printing of Red Gate Farm. This fact drew my attention to the series. The ad states:

Here is an ingenious a series of books for little folks as ever appeared since "Alice in Wonderland." The idea of the Riddle Books is this, three girls and three boys decide to form a riddle club. Each book is full of the adventures of these youngsters, but as an added attraction each book is filled with a lot of the best riddles you ever heard.

The idea of club members telling each other riddles is intriguing. There are many, many riddles in each book. Some of them were easy for me, while others were difficult. A child could have a lot of fun reading these books and trying to solve the riddles before the answers are given. Each time a riddle is asked, the club members take turns guessing and almost always get into discussions, sometimes heated, about what the answer could be.

I had trouble getting into the first book, for several reasons. Part of it was just me and that I was very busy at work and wasn't sure which series I wanted to read next (see my first post in this blog). The other reason is that I had trouble keeping all six characters straight. I gave up on that issue and forged my way through the book. By the second book, I began to see several of the characters as different from the others. I do believe that the author did a better job of exploring the characters' personalities as the series progressed. By the fifth book, Polly, Artie, Ward, Fred, and Margy were all distinctly different characters in my mind. Jess was the only one that didn't stand out. As I begin volume 6, Jess still doesn't stand out, but that's okay.

The series has a lot of humor in it, more than many other series do. I feel that humor is an important part of any series book. I find that the ones that I enjoy more do have more humor in them than the ones that I enjoy less. Book 5 is hilarious. I laughed out loud quite a few times. At one point I laughed uncontrollably. I won't try to describe the scene, but the antics of Ward (the obligatory fat friend) and of Artie (the bookworm who continually recites everything he has learned from books) are priceless.

So look for the Riddle Club section shortly . . .