posted on 23 Feb 2025

Where’s Wally? A-Maze-ing Journeys by Martin Handford

Back in 1987, newly qualified creative artist, Martin Handford, teamed-up with the publisher, Walker Books to produce what would become the first of a famous series that posed the reader a problem – find Wally. Hidden amongst often chaotic crowd scenes, Wally, clad in what has become his characteristic red and white hooped outfit was cunningly smuggled into hard-to-find poses – challenging young (and not so young) readers to spend time studying the detail of the drawings in order to pin Wally down.

The idea became a phenomenon that also took off in the USA where Wally became Waldo and then spread worldwide – with the subsequent changes of name but with exactly the same format. The books sold in bucketloads and the cry of ‘Where’s Wally’ entered into common parlance.

And the series shows little sign of coming to any sort of conclusion with Where’s Wally? A-Maze-ing Journeys the latest instalment. This time it’s all about finding your way through a dozen different mazes that pose the reader some real challenges – asking you to find your way through the maze from start to finish and along the way, there’s another task. So, for example, we start at the airport and these are our instructions:

“Take off from start and wing your way through the suitcase paths to finish. Then trace a route to collect the 14 cabin crew on the way to the aeroplane. Yikes, my friends and I have left our luggage behind. Four suitcases have red stripes and the other has yellow and black stripes….Let’s hope it’s plane simple to find them.”

Once you’ve conquered this task, you can move on to similar challenges at locations like the Sweet Factory, The Gallery, The Studio or The Caves (which is my favourite). And once you’ve gone through all the scenarios there’s a final page that will encourage you to use your observation skills to complete check-lists.

If you’re the type that likes a bit of obsessive detail, there’s also another mission:

“Dropped in one of the scenes is a tiny maze on a small piece of paper. Can you find it? See if you can complete the maze too! You could use a magnifying glass to help.”

Available now from Walker Books, you will be able to get a copy from your local independent bookshop – who will be happy to order it for you if they don’t have it on their shelves.

Terry Potter

February 2025