Local author offers puzzling pastime to local families
ATLANTA - By now, many of us have realized — keeping everyone busy and entertained inside the house isn’t easy. But a local author’s popular book series might just offer the kind of interactive adventure both kids and adults are searching for.
Jay Carlson is the author of the Clue Town book series — something he says stems from a lifelong love of puzzles. “Every day I would open up the newspaper…and I’d solve all the word jumbles, the cryptograms, the crossword puzzle,” says Carlson of his childhood. “I even have records of when I was about eight years old, I was making puzzle books for my family.”
Years later, living in Atlanta, Carlson started looking for a way to use those skills to make money. The answer was Clue Town, a series of books featuring interactive, walkable scavenger hunts through some of Georgia’s most popular cities, neighborhoods, and parks.
“When I first started it really was just a niche thing that I thought other puzzle people would enjoy,” he says. “But it turned out to be so much more broad than I ever expected.”
Each book comes with a pencil and compass, and on each page is a brain-teaser leading amateur sleuths to landmarks along the path. Carlson’s first book was a puzzle hunt through Piedmont Park, and locations including Oakland Cemetery and Georgia Tech followed. But the latest entries in the series seem especially perfect for today’s word of social distancing.
“I have two titles that you can solve in anyone’s house. It does require two people,” explains Carlson of his in-home hunts. “Basically, it’s a pre-made scavenger hunt, where one person will cut the pages out of the book and I’ll tell you on the page where to hide that page. And it uses places that are in anyone’s house, like the refrigerator, umbrella, shoe…things like that.”
Those home adventures take about thirty minutes each — precious activity time in this often-puzzling “new normal.”
For more information on ordering the Clue Town books, click here.