Kids, Parents Puzzle Together

By: Dave Astor What syndicated feature is published in both newspapers and restaurants? The answer to that puzzler is a puzzle by the name of "Kids Across Parents Down," which Jan Buckner Walker creates for Tribune Media Services (TMS).

Her family-friendly crossword ? in which youngsters solve the horizontal clues and parents take on the vertical ones ? runs in such papers as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Post. Other versions appear in Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. magazine and on kid menus in about 540 Cracker Barrel restaurants; that menu tie-in began earlier this year. This month, the newspaper version of "Kids Across Parents Down" will mark its third anniversary with TMS.

Walker actually came up with the idea for the puzzle in 1999, but didn't do much with it for a couple of years. "After 9/11, I just had a thought ? people wanted to stay home and bond with their children," she says. "I showed it to syndicates and got a great response."

The Illinois-based Walker earned a journalism degree from Howard University, did some copyediting as an intern at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and later earned a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She still does employment- law consulting, but says creating "Kids Across Parents Down" each week and handling the feature's licensing has become a full-time job.

Part of the puzzle's appeal, she notes, is that it's interactive on an in-person level: "Because we're in a multimedia time, many things children do are between them and a machine." To solve the puzzle, parents and children have to consult some of each others' clues.

Walker, who makes her work age-appropriate for kids (5 to 13) and fun rather than difficult for parents, creates her puzzles weekly rather than daily in order to make tackling it more of a treat than a chore for fans. Many clients run it on Sundays.

"Kids Across" is also done in classrooms, with teachers solving the adult clues. A series of books based on the puzzle is slated to be published by Running Press starting next spring, and TMS may offer a Spanish-language version in 2007.