SLEUTH & SOLVE

Logic and, sometimes, prior knowledge come into play in solving this set of simple posers related to human anatomy, originally published in Catalan.

As in previous volumes the puzzles are set up as games of logic and deduction for competing players or teams, with solutions and point scores for difficulty hidden beneath flaps. Some are simple enough, such as an optical illusion featuring two rectangles that only seem to be different sizes. The titles and setups are often funny; for “A Study in Scarlet,” for example, a panicked patient’s red poop turns out to be caused not by internal bleeding but the beet and celery smoothie he consumed the day before. Often, though, young readers will likely be left more confused than amused due to the absence of crucial clues, or possibly translation issues. A statement that the cornea is the only body part without blood vessels leaves one young sherlock’s guess about hair unanswered, for instance, and on a section devoted to reproduction, a grinning sperm cell named “ProtoPablito-18754” beats the competition to make eye contact with smiling egg “ProtoMartita-1” but then says “I’m leaving!” without any mention or sign of an actual union. In Escandell’s droll duotone illustrations, most human faces are line drawings and so mostly as white as the paper, but some do show variation in skin tones.

Uneven fare for young logicians and anatomists.