Can mentorship help you in a career transition? Toby explores this as he recounts his decision to walk away from a tenure-track faculty position to become a librarian. Through OLA MentorMatch, he met with Jennifer Peters who helped him find where to focus on his job search.
One thing leads to another
Douglas Davey is our cryptic crossword creator and puzzler extraordinaire. In this third entry of his monthly crossword column, 793.73, Douglas brings us along on a story inspired by an all-to-common situation; however, the steps each of us take to get from beginning to end may not all be the same. Try and get through this series of word ladders in as few steps as possible!
As always, follow the link above the puzzle for a printable version and the link below it for the answers.
You know how it is – you borrow a movie from the library but then you keep it too long. Now you have a fine, so you go to the library to pay it off, but while you’re there you see a book that you want to read so you borrow it. When you return the book, you see that it’s been made into a movie, so you borrow that, knowing you’ll probably keep it late again.
In the spirit of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, I give you a “word ladder,” a puzzle where you change words one letter at a time in order to move from the top of the ladder to the bottom. For example, going from DOG to CAT in two ‘rungs’ would be:
DOG > COG > COT > CAT
I’ve added a little twist by having the last word of each puzzle form the first word of the next. Can you complete them all and go from the first FILM to the last? The ladders get harder as you go!
All words are common and acceptable in Scrabble. You might be able to do it in fewer steps if you’re willing to go a little further afield with your words!
Hint: letters with doubled center letters are often the key to success.
Feature image: “Crosswords” by Jessica Whittle Photography and is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Douglas Davey has been a professional librarian for over 20 years and is currently the Manager, Library Services at Whitchurch-Stouffville Hills Public Library. Currently, he is the Vice President of the Ontario Public Library Association and the OPLA Children’s or Youth Librarian of the Year. He is also an author of fiction for teens, and a total nerd for horror, fantasy, and sci-fi. He lives in Guelph with his family.
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