Snow day seek-and-find fun

It's looking like we'll have a snow day again tomorrow, so we're loading up on projects to take home. I've got a stack of novels, audio books, and blog possibilities set aside that I probably wouldn't get through in a week of snow days, but hope springs eternal, right?

Two new picture puzzle collections from Candlewick offer a nice distraction. Where's Waldo? The Phenomenal Postcard Book features the eponymous hero in 30 postcards. Beloved, bespectacled Waldo appears in settings ranging from Dracula's dinner party to a Hollywood movie premier to a sinking pirate ship. There's one for every correspondent and every occasion -- if you can stop searching long enough to actually mail the thing.

I keep mixing up the characters of activity book MoshiMoshiKawaii: Where Is Strawberry Moshi? with the dessert mochi. Can you blame me, given the dumpling-shaped animals that populate Moshi town? Strawberry Moshi (named for her strawberry-print ensemble, not her flavor) is looking for her boyfriend, Super Moshi. But due to the huge number of Moshis, and all their different outfits, she needs help. The seek-and-find puzzles and mazes are good for kids too young for the more complex Waldo puzzles, even if they do sometimes feel like a book-long ad for MoshiMoshi merch. (OMG, Moshi activities online!!)

While Waldo, a long-time friend, might get preference for my snow day reading breaks, the bizarrely cute Moshi are growing on me. And making me hungry.

-- Katie Bircher

P.S. Kitty says Stephen Savage's Where's Walrus? (Scholastic, pubbing today -- click for brilliant trailer) has "a flipper up on that guy in the striped shirt." Look for her review in the March/April issue of the magazine.