I Spy Spooky Night

Children's Literature - Susie Wilde

Jean Marzollo adds to her series with I Spy Spooky Night. Marzollo's riddles walk children through a haunted house where they search for objects (everything from a skeleton key to a palindrome) which she's hidden in rhymes ("I spy four pumpkins, a ruler, a bat, / Eight pine cones, a ladder, three acorns, a cat"). Photographs by Walter Wick are perfect for setting a spooky mood, but safe at the same time.

School Library Journal

K-Gr 4Another brilliant collaboration by this incredibly innovative duo. This time, the puzzles take place in and around a haunted house (an altered Victorian dollhouse). Readers are invited to search for mice, spiders, candles, bats, jack-o-lanterns, and bones among other creepy things found in the hallway, library, fireplace, and laboratory of the house, as well as in the graveyard and a garden of ghoulies outside. (How the miniature cobwebs were simulated remains a mystery.) Using a spooky sky for a backdrop, various props, and some very creative lighting, Wick achieves a definite dramatic effect. Marzollo's clever rhyming puzzles add great flair, and, as in the earlier titles, readers are encouraged to solve more riddles at the end and to make up selections of their own. This book is fun for a wide range of ages, as the picture riddles vary in difficulty and sophistication. A must, in multiple copies, for any Halloween collection.Helen Rosenberg, Chicago Public Library, IL