Review: Where's Waldo? Spooky Spotlight Search

Part of the Where's Waldo? series
By Martin Handford
Available now from Candlewick
Review copy

Just in time for Halloween comes Where's Waldo? Spooky Spotlight Search, a new Where's Waldo book with a gimmick. You use a glow-in-the-dark wand that slides beneath a transparent image to find Waldo.

The slider isn't super bright, so I recommend using it in a dim room rather than a fully dark one. A flashlight can also be used to make the picture over the glowing star appear brighter.

In some ways, Where's Waldo? Spooky Spotlight Search is more difficult than a standard Waldo book. Since you can only see a small part of the image at a time, it is possible to accidentally skip over the bit Waldo is in. At the same time, the transparency only takes up part of one page instead of the image being a full bleed over two pages. There is much less space to look over. The hardest page had Waldo hidden at the very edge. But Martin Handford's art does always have so much fun packed into it that there is far more to look for than Waldo, the other characters, and even the bonuses listed on each page.

Buy Where's Waldo? Spooky Spotlight Search for the gimmick. It is also good for introducing younger kids to Where's Waldo? It doesn't have as many pages as most Waldo books and has a more limited search area, making it quicker to get through in addition to the glow-in-the-dark mechanic. Kids on the older end of the Where's Waldo? age range might be disappointed by this one.