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.

Read Send me another story, please!

I just got a send-a-story of Susan Meyers's and Marla Frazee's Everywhere Babies from thoughtful Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publicity Director -- and Horn Book alum -- Karen Walsh. (How did she know I love Marla Frazee?) These genius greeting card/book hybrids allow you to mail an entire picture book to a loved one for less than five bucks and a little extra postage.

In addition to Everywhere Babies, send-a-stories are available for Joanne Ryder and Melissa Sweet's Won't You Be My Kissaroo?, Debi Gliori's No Matter What, and my perennial Valentine's favorite, Sandol Stoddard Warburg and Jacqueline Chwast's endearingly bizarre I Like You. Sure beats a boring drugstore Mother's Day or new baby card!

I never manage to get it together in time to send Christmas cards, but maybe I can get I Like You in the mail to friends by Valentine's Day -- if I start now.

-- Katie Bircher