Sam Swallow and the Riddleworld League. William New. Illustrated by Yayo. Vancouver, BC: Tradewind Books, 2013. 128 pp., trade pbk., $12.95. ISBN 978-1-896580-98-2. Grades 3-6 / Ages 8-11. Review by Kay Weisman. *** /4

excerpt:

“These are your Riddle-tasks,” Old Swivelhead continued. “You must:

1. compose the S and arrange the signs,
2. pass the time (and remember to rhyme),
3. enter the maze and escape it again,
4. call a tongue-untwister to break the chains,
5. sing a song that’s known to Sam,

7. break the ice to catch the tram,
8. find a stream and cross it cleverly,
9. meet the Eagle, enjoy the revelry,
10. then count back from ten to one.
If you get this far, you’ll think you’re done.”

“You left out Number 6,” blurted Sam.

“So I did,” replied the owl, fixing one eye on Sam for an extra-long minute.
Then she continued, “Along the way you must also:

6. rescue the One Who’s Lost in the middle of Riddleworld.”

Ten-year-old Sam Swallow loves word puzzles and baseball. Anxious about tryouts for the Byrd City baseball team, Sam trips and falls on his way out of the house. When he awakens, he has been transformed into a swallow in Riddleland, an alternate reality inhabited mostly by birds that enjoy word play. Old Swivelhead, one of Riddleland’s Night Owls, offers Sam the above riddle which guides Sam’s quest through this unusual land. Luckily Sam’s skills are up to the task, and he returns to his human family more confident of his own abilities.

      New, the author of the acclaimed The Year I Was Grounded, returns here with a novel for a slightly younger audience. The story’s strength is its word play: anagrams, puns, ingenious rhymes, and clever name choices help to move the story along, and Yayo’s black and white spot illustrations help to clarify some of the word play. Sam Swallow and the Riddleworld League should be popular with fans of Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer’s classic, The Phantom Tollbooth (1961).

Recommended.

Kay Weisman, a librarian and reviewer, now writes “Information Matters” for School Library Monthly and works as a youth librarian at West Vancouver Memorial Library.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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