Five of the riders went into Mr. Thompkins' store and found some damaged books he was selling at reduced prices. From the clues given below, can you work out who bought which book, how much each rider paid, the names of the authors, how the book was damaged and what color each book was?
Buck's book was by E. T. Plenty. The book which cost 10¢ was not by Tall. N. Thin, whose publisher liked brown books.
The book on cooking, which cost 12¢, did not have a broken spine.
The book with the broken spine does not have an orange cover.
The book with the lost pages is red, but Ike, who spent an odd number of cents, bought a grey book. It was not the joke book, which was not by Irma N. Coat.
Noah's book cost 3¢ more than the blue book.
The burnt book, which was not the cheapest book, was by I. M. Silly.
The 8¢ book was by Laff. A. Lot.
Funnily enough, the animal book had been eaten by a goat, whilst Jimmy bought the history book, which sold for an even number of cents.
RIDERS: Ike, Noah, Kid, Buck, Jimmy
COVERS: orange, blue, red, brown, grey
AUTHORS: Irma N. Coat, Tall N. Thin, I. M. Silly, E. T. Plenty, Laff A. Lott
DAMAGE: spine broken, eaten by a goat, water, burnt, lost pages
COST: 5¢ , 8¢ , 10¢ , 12¢ , 15¢
TYPE OF BOOK: animal, cooking, explorers, history, jokes
The book by Tall N. Thin has a brown cover(clue 2), so Ike who bought the grey book (clue 4), cannot own Tall N. Thin's book, nor is the grey book by Irma N. Coat (clue 4). Buck's book was by E. T. Plenty (clue 1). As Ike spent an odd number of cents (clue 4), he cannot have bought the 8¢ book by Laff A Lot (clue 7), so his book must be by I. M. Silly, which was burnt (clue 6). As the burnt book was not the cheapest (clue 6), clue 4 tells us that Ike must have spent 15¢ .
Therefore, from clue 5, Noah must have paid 8¢ for his book, which must be by Laff A Lot, and the blue book must cost 5¢. From the covers we know that the brown book did not cost 8¢ or 15¢ , and we know that it was not 5¢. Nor did it cost 10¢ (clue 2), so it must have cost 12¢ and was therefore the cooking book (clue 3).
The cover rules out Buck, Noah or Ike as its buyer, and the type of book rules out Jimmy, who bought the history book (clue 8), so it must have been Kid who bought the brown cookbook by Tall N. Thin.
By elimination, Jimmy must have bought his history book by Irma N. Coat. The book which was eaten by a goat was about animals (clue 8) and the book with lost pages was red (clue 4), so neither of them was the brown cookbook; nor was its spine broken (clue 3), and we know that the burnt book was grey by I. M. Silly, so the cookbook must have been damaged by water. We now know that the burnt book Ike bought was not about cooking, animals or history, nor was it jokes (clue 4), so it must have been about explorers.
The even number of cents spent by Jimmy (clue 8) was not 8¢ or 12¢, so it must have been 10¢, and, by elimination, the 5¢ blue book must have been sold to Buck and was written by E. T. Plenty (Clue 1).
We now know which books were damaged by water, had lost pages or were burnt, so as Jimmy's book was not orange (clue 3), the book eaten by a goat must be, and the book with the broken spine must be blue and written by E. T. Plenty. We now have either the cause of damage or the book type to match 4 of the colours, so the book eaten by a goat must have been about animals by Laff A. Lot, bought by Jimmy and the book damaged by having its spine broken must have been a joke book.
| Ike | explorers |
15¢ |
I. M. Silly | burnt | grey (gray) |
| Noah | animals |
8¢ |
Laff A. Lot | eaten by goat | orange |
| Kid | cooking |
12¢ |
Tall N. Thin | water-damaged | brown |
| Buck | jokes |
5¢ |
E. T. Plenty | broken spine | blue |
| Jimmy | history |
10¢ |
Irma N. Coat | lost pages | red |