Each puzzle is made from a short story that you can read as you solve it. Download the puzzle’s PDF and print it out.
Here are the blended books you can solve:
- The Fox and the Grapes, by Aesop - The classic fable of unfulfilled desire. (130 words)
- The Feast of Nemesis, by Saki - How to counteract the peace and goodwill of the holidays. (1,500 words)
- Luck, by Mark Twain - How a military “genius” made a name for himself. (1,700 words)
As an example, here’s the first section of The Fox and The Grapes, by Aesop:
Start unscrambling the letters in each word that you can. Some of the longer words might be hard to unscramble, so skip them at first. Some words could be unscrambled more than one way, like “was” or “saw”, so skip them too.
Once you’ve unscrambled the easy words in a section, look below the * * * divider. Each column shows all the letters at that position in the words above. Of course, each column is scrambled, so you don’t know which row each letter came from. Cross out the letters in that column in the words you’ve already unscrambled, and the ones that are left can help you solve the last few words.
In the example, the second letter of the third word is the only thing missing in that column, so cross out all the letters below it. That leaves you with the letter u. Similarly, the seventh word is either “saw” or “was”, so look to see which column has a w in it. Since only the first column under that word has a w, the word must be “was”. The gray bands should help you trace the columns down the page.
Continue using the clues at the bottom to work out letters until you can solve each word. You might also get hints from the surrounding story. If a column has more than one missing word, check to see if any of the letters appear in only one of the missing words. In the example, the second column has an r and a t left. The second missing word doesn’t contain t, so it must have the r. That means that the first missing word has the t.
Once you unscramble all the words in a section, move on to the next section to keep reading the story. If you need help or want to check your answer, see the solutions page.
If you enjoy these puzzles, you might like my Four-Letter Blocks that combine crossword puzzles with jigsaw puzzles. You can also find a complete list of my other projects.