Book Riddle Rules
- These “book riddles” refer to stories. This may mean that the poem references a standalone novel, a play that is often read as a book, the overarching story of all the books in a series, just the first book of a set, or something similar. They do not refer to movies (though they may refer to books that have been made into movies). They could perhaps more aptly be called “story riddles” but, frankly, it just didn’t have the same ring to it.
- The poem may refer to the book’s plot, characters, theme, moral, individual event, impression left on us, or any combination of these.
- While the goal is to point to a specific book in each poem, it’s very likely that other books will sometimes also fit, maybe even better than the intended one. In these cases, you may rejoice in your personal victory even though your answer was not the “right” one. In fact, there will probably be a spinoff set of riddles for which the goal will be to identify as many stories that fit the description as possible.
- The difficulty rating on the meter is based on how cryptic the haiku is, how many specific details are provided, how well-known vs. obscure the book seems, etc. There is no rubric and the judgments are highly subjective. You may disagree with the rating. That’s ok. We may too.
- We can offer you no better prize than the satisfaction of solving the riddle correctly. Seriously. There are no prizes.