Title: “Double or Nothing”
Prompt: The meta answer is a popular children’s book series.
Answer: FROG AND TOAD
Explanation: four of the eight longest across answers have a pair of double letters in them. The double letters spell FROG. The other four of the eight longest across answers have clues that include a synonym for the word nothing, like so:
16A [Competition that’s nil–nil, for example] for TIEGAME
27A [“None of the above” and “other,” for
example] for OPTIONS
42A [It’s zero degrees if you’re facing north] for AZIMUTH
68A [Zip away (from)] for DARTOUT
The first letters of those answers spell TOAD.
So combining the answers from the double path and the nothing path gives us FROG AND TOAD, the beloved children’s series by Arnold Lobel. Several solvers commented that they have fond memories of this series from their childhood or from reading to their own kids. Regina and Tom C. also sent along a picture of an apt billboard they ran across this week:
There were 89 correct answers and 5 incorrect submissions this month. Most of the incorrect submissions were for just Frog, presumably a reference to the series by Dutch children’s author Max Velthuijs. Almost there, but you need the other half of the mechanism!
Congratulations to this month’s randomly chosen winner: Matt Matera of Easton, MA! The prize this month, as it is every month, is a copy of a thematically apt book embossed with FROM THE LIBRARY OF ARIADNE. This month I simply couldn’t resist and so the prize is Frog and Toad are Doing Their Best [A Parody]: Bedtime Stories for Trying Times by Jennie Egerdie (illustrated by Ellie Hajdu). Congratulations, Matt!
You can read Ben Chenoweth’s blog post about this month’s contest over at Crossword Fiend, where you can also leave a comment and rate the puzzle.
Dubious Honors
This month’s Tick-Tock Award, which is awarded to the solver whose submission I received first, goes to Stephen B., whose answer came in at 9:35 AM EDT on May 1. The White Rabbit Award, which is awarded to the solver whose submission I received last, goes to Louis D., whose joint answer came in at 10:28 PM EDT on May 5. I have no actual prizes to hand out to these solvers, they just get the satisfaction of BOOKending this month’s contest. Well done!
Can you beat their times next month??
Thank you to everyone who submitted an answer to May’s contest! And thank you to Faren Roth for this fun puzzle! If you are interested in constructing a puzzle for ACL, please visit our Submit a Crossword page. See you in June!
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