Review and Giveaway: I SPY A to Z: A Book of Picture Riddles (CLOSED)

Several years ago, my girls and I discovered our very first ‘I Spy’ book from Scholastic. And ever since, we’ve been loving the books in this series. My oldest has checked every one of them out from her school library – and most more than once. No matter how often you look at these books, there’s always something new to discover and ‘spy’ out together.

I am thrilled to be able to give you a sneak peek of the newest book in the series – called “I Spy A to Z: A Book of Picture Riddles”.

What it is:

The hallmark of the I Spy books are the large color photos that take up most of every page, full of a variety of colorful items that sometimes follow a theme, and sometimes have no real relation to each other. Each page beings with the phrase, “I spy…” and then gives a list of items which can be found – somewhere – on that particular page. Finding them is both the challenge, and the fun.

I Spy A to Z is very similar to the rest of the books, with one change – every pages asks you to search out items beginning with a particular letter. Here’s a synopsis:

Easy-to-read riddles by Jean Marzollo are paired with forty-six object-filled photographs by Walter Wick to create I Spy A to Z, the most engaging alphabet book ever! With more than thirty titles and 36 million books in print, the I Spy series continues to win the hearts and minds of parents and kids everywhere.

Courtesy of Scholastic and Big Honcho Media, we received a copy of I Spy A to Z to read and review.

Here’s my our take on it:

There wasn’t any explanation required when my girls saw this book! They know the distinctive I Spy logo and cover style of these books well. And even my youngest, thanks to preschool versions of similar books, knows exactly what to do with an I Spy book. It didn’t take more than a minute or two for someone to climb up in the chair and begin ‘spying’…

One thing that I love about the I Spy books is that even after you find the items listed on the page, there are still so many different things to notice and learn about every photograph. Whether it’s a certain figurine or shape, or ‘spying’ everything of a certain color – the opportunities are really just about limitless, no matter what age you are. I know that I certainly enjoy sitting down with this book as much as my kids do.

By their very nature, the I Spy books are educational. But I love how they’ve taken things to the next level by making an I Spy alphabet book. My older girls can already read – but even they have a blast finding and identifying any item (whether in the book or around them) beginning with whichever letter a particular page is focusing on. And the book provides a wonderful opportunity to show my preschooler how many words start with the same letter and to help her begin to identify letters’ sounds as well as recognizing them by sight.

The bottom line:

The alphabet truly comes alive in I Spy A to Z – which is not only an alphabet book, but a puzzle book, picture book and educational opportunity in general as well. Whether your child is just learning his or her letters, beginning to string sounds together to form words, or is reading on his or her own, I Spy A to Z is an engaging challenge that adults and kids can even sit down and puzzle out together.

Where can you find it?:

You can order I Spy A to Z directly from the Scholastic website, or purchase it from retailers where kids books are generally sold. It is available on Amazon as well – the list price is $13.99.

Would you like to try it?:

To help celebrate the release of this newest I Spy book release, I have the opportunity to offer a Grand Prize Pack to a lucky reader, as well as prizes to four runner-up winners as well! Here’s what the winners will receive:

One (1) Grand Prize winner receives a Grand Prize Pack including:

• Wii Video Game ‘Ultimate I SPY’
• Board Game ‘I SPY Memory Game’
• I SPY A to Z: A Book of Picture Riddles
• One additional I SPY Book (Title TBD)

Grand Prize Pack valued at = $85.99

Four (4) runner-up winners receive a copy of the new book:

• I SPY A to Z: A Book of Picture Riddles

Each book valued at = $13.99

If you’d like to Spy along with a special child in your life, here are the rules:

1. Enter by visiting Scholastic’s I Spy site and leaving a comment here to let me know which is your favorite activity there. Please don’t just say ‘choose me’, or your entry will be discarded.
2. The contest will run until Friday, July 10th at 11:59 pm EST. The winners will be selected through random drawing, contacted by e-mail, listed on this post and also submitted to PRIZEY. US entries only, please.
3. Please leave a valid e-mail address or other way to contact you! If you don’t wish to leave your e-mail address, please make sure that you leave a unique name and check back with PRIZEY to see if you won. If any of the winners hasn’t responded within 3 days, an alternate winner will be chosen by random drawing.
4. If you’d like extra entries, you can:

• Subscribe to my RSS feed (click on the orange icon in the upper right sidebar) or subscribe via e-mail – leave me a separate comment to let me know.
• Mention this contest on your blog with a link back to this post, and leave a separate comment with the link to your post so I can find it.
• Either Twitter about, ‘Stumble’, ‘Digg’ or ‘Kirtsy’ this post – leave me a separate comment with your username at whichever site(s) you chose (one extra entry per method).

So that’s a total of 7 comments/entries if you do all of the extra entry options.

Good luck! 

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – the random number generator has chosen comment #93 as the grand prize winner, and comments #224, #188, #176, and #141 as the runners-up winners:

Congratulations to:

• Angela J (no blog) who said, “The Challengers games look interesting” (Grand Prize)
  
• Michelle H. (no blog) who said, “My kids would love the games such as “I Spy Bingo”.”
• gloria mckellar (no blog) whose extra subscription entry has won for her
• Adele (no blog) who said, “The I Spy Mystery Match is loads of fun. Thanks for this offer.“
• Jenny Martin (no blog) who said, “Ooh cool…we Love I Spy–my daughter and even my 3 year old! I have never visited that site before–cool–I like the Bingo game“

I will be e-mailing each of you shortly to work out the details!

This post courtesy of: Scholastic and Big Honcho Media. No payment or compensation, other than product samples as described above, was received for this post.