Title: “Sounds Like a Job for the Boss”
Prompt: The meta answer is a children’s novel.
Answer: HEIDI
Explanation: the clue for the central entry – 37A OVERSEE clued as [Do the boss’s job] – and its callback to the title suggest that OVERSEE might be relevant to the meta somehow, and indeed it is. If you take the letters “over C” throughout the grid, you get SAY THIRTY-DOWN. 30D is HID… hid? That’s not a children’s novel. But if, instead, it is read as “hi D,” that sounds like HEIDI, the classic children’s novel by Johanna Spyri and the meta answer.
Several solvers commented in their email submissions that, once they got to HID, this one had them stumped until they stepped away for a minute to go do something else, and then suddenly the answer came to them! Solvers also commented that they got a laugh out of the last step, which we love to hear – it made me laugh too when Faren first sent it to me! Metas almost always make me smile but rarely make me laugh out loud, so this was a nice treat.
There were 71 correct answers and 7 incorrect submissions this month. Several of the incorrect submissions were for SARDINES, presumably because of the clue for 30D [Played sardines, maybe]. Sardines is indeed the title of several books, including a middle-grade novel by Sashi Kaufman, but it doesn’t quite fit the instruction SAY THIRTY-DOWN. Even assuming pulling from the clue instead of the grid answer could be considered a valid approach, there’s no reason to drop two of the words from the clue in that instance.
Congratulations to this month’s randomly chosen winner: Justin Weinbaum of Pittsburgh, PA! The prize this month is, as always, a copy of a thematically apt book embossed with FROM THE LIBRARY OF ARIADNE. This month I’m going with ACL’s second nonfiction prize: Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by Buzz Bissinger. If you can’t imagine why I thought a book about football was “thematically apt” for a contest about Heidi, I invite you to visit this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game. Here’s the first paragraph, speaking of things that make me laugh:
The Heidi Game was a 1968 American Football League (AFL) game between the Oakland Raiders and the visiting New York Jets. The contest, held on November 17, 1968, was notable for its exciting finish, in which Oakland scored two touchdowns in the final minute to win the game 43–32. However, NBC, the game’s television broadcaster, decided to break away from its coverage on the East Coast to broadcast the television film Heidi, which caused many viewers to miss the Raiders’ comeback.
Congratulations, Justin!
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/or rate the puzzle.
Dubious Honors
This month’s Tick-Tock Award, which is awarded to the solver whose submission I received first, goes to Aaron T., whose answer came in at 9:22 AM EST on November 1. The White Rabbit Award, which is awarded to the solver whose submission I received last, goes to David C., whose answer came in at 9:44 PM EST on November 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 November’s contest! And thank you to Faren Roth for this great puzzle! If you are interested in constructing a puzzle for ACL, please visit our Submit a Crossword page. See you in December, and remember: clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose. 😉
Ex libris Ariadne
