Where's Waldo Attempts a Comeback
Posted on June 17, 2006
Where's Waldo creator Martin Handford has a new book out called Where's Waldo? The Great Picture Hunt. It is the first Where's Waldo book in over nine years. The earlier Waldo books were a huge hit. Publisher Candlewick Press says the books have sold over 40 million copies worldwide. A Detroit News article quotes children's book expert Anita Silvey who thinks there will be interest in the new Waldo book.
But times have changed. This is the age of "Harry Potter," when children's books regularly leap over the million mark, when kids sleep on SpongeBob SquarePants sheets and tote a Dora the Explorer backpack to school.The Waldo Wiki says Waldo's girlfriend Wenda and the nasty villian Odlaw are also hiding in this latest Waldo adventure.Where's Waldo fit? Good news for fans -- experts say he'll fit in just fine.
"My guess is there will certainly be children who've never seen Waldo before who will be quite interested by this," says Anita Silvey, author of "100 Best Books for Children" (Houghton Mifflin, $20, 208 pages). For starters, she says, children's books simply never go out of style.
"If you tap into either the fantasy life of children or something that interests them, it really doesn't matter what publication year you come out in."