The Best I Spy Books for All Ages
My dad loved the I Spy books when I was a child. Not only did he love searching for whatever was hidden on each page, but he also loved discovering the clever objects that were used to build the scenes.
Almost every year for many years, we’d get him the newest installment of the I Spy books for his birthday or Father’s Day and then we’d spend the next few days poring over each page.
Now, when we go to my parents’ house, my girls love looking through their huge collection of I Spy books and my dad is always happy to spend a while helping them find a shadow cat or fourteen dimes or whatever.
Over the years, I’ve discovered lots of search and find books, and they’ve become favorites in our home, from the very simplest I Spy books to super complicated ones.
Here are the I Spy Books we know and love, and if you have other search and find favorites, definitely share them in the comments!
The Best I Spy Books
The Bear’s Song by Benjamin Chaud
I really like Benjamin Chaud’s style and these oversized books are just a darn lot of fun with a little bear who gets lost and his papa bear who is determined to find him, so your job is to find both the baby bear and the papa bear on each page. There is also The Bear’s Sea Escape and The Bear’s Surprise.
Busy Bunny Days: In the Town, On the Farm & At the Port by Britta Teckentrup
This reminds me of Richard Scarry’s books a little, with tons of animals going about their day. On each page, there are a few listed things to find, but you could look at these scenes endlessly.
LMNO Peas by Keith Baker
After the first few times I read this one to Ella, I realized there was a ladybug hidden on each page, and Ella LOVED finding it. This is perfect for your 2-3 year olds and there’s also 1-2-3 Peas, Hap-pea All Year, and Little Green Peas.
Have You Seen My Dragon? by Steve Light
As you might have guessed, in this one you look for a dragon and it doubles as a counting book. The companion book, Have You Seen My Monster? deals in shapes. They’re both so fun with blank and white ink illustrations and a splash of one color.
The Lost House by B. B. Cronin
This search and find book is fun because every page has a room of a different color and EVERYTHING is that color, so it is surprisingly tricky to find the objects. And then in the final page, all the colors come together and it’s absolutely vibrant and delightful.
The Odd One Out by Britta Teckentrup
I am obsessed with this series with the most gorgeously designed patterns and you have to find the animal that’s just a little bit different. For example, which camel only has one hump? Which butterfly hasn’t yet left the cocoon? My girls love this book and the other books in the series including Where’s the Pair? and One is Not a Pair.
Adele & Simon by Barbara McClintock
I love the decidedly old-fashioned feel of this book about a brother and sister pair headed home from school through Paris. Simon leaves school with a whole slew of items – sweater, gloves, knapsack, etc – and on each page loses one. There are so many details on this book that are just fun to look at and I always am aching for a little trip to France after we read it.
Where’s Walrus? by Stephen Savage
This is another look and find favorite for the super young. A wily walrus escapes from the zoo on a sleepy afternoon and the zookeeper tries to find him on each page, but the walrus hides (not very trickily) among the people on each scene, from firemen to dancers to painters.
A Thousand Billion Things (And Some Sheep) by Lois Clement, illustrated by Anne Montel
Basically, this is the I Spy book equivalent to tossing all your toys on the floor and then searching through for a few very specific and tiny things. I cannot imagine the amount of work it took to illustrate this. It’s the perfect book for a rainy afternoon, a road trip or the witching hour.
Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
This one is an I spy classic, and I like it that you only have to find one thing, but you can also spend as much time as you want looking for other characters or just funny things in each page.
Where’s the Elephant? by Barroux
Here you get a small set of animals to find (an elephant, parrot, and snake) on each page, which is challenging at the beginning in a full jungle, but gets easier as the jungle is developed into a city and the animals eventually end up in a zoo. At the end, they make a break for freedom and say hasta la vista to city living.
Uno’s Garden by Graeme Base
This one also has something of an environmental theme like Where’s the Elephant? with Uno building a home in the middle of a very dense forest and eventually it gets deeply urbanized. You count down to the middle of the book with one less animal to find on each page, and then as the city goes wild again, you count back up as the foliage and animals reappear.
Yoo-hoo, Ladybug! by Mem Fox, illustrated by Laura Ljungkvist
Perfect for the youngest reader, you can find a ladybug on each page of this I Spy book. We checked this one out from the library at the beginning of the year, and Star and I read it over and over again together.
Look! A Book! by Bob Staake
I love the rhymes that go along with this book and that there are only three things to find on each page. But then you can do the extra finding at the end, so it’s basically as long or as short as you want it to be, which, as a parent, I deeply appreciate.
Find Me: A Hide and Seek Book by Anders Arhoj
This one is brand new and I’d buy it just for the cover alone. When you start the book, you’re introduced to a character and then find him on each page. When you get to the end, you’re introduced to a second character and you go backward through the book to find her on each of the pages.
And if you’d like a printable copy of this look and find book list that you can take to your library or screenshot on your phone for easy access, just pop in your email address below and it’ll come right to your inbox!
I’ve also heard amazing things about In the Town All Year Round and Welcome to Mamoko, but I haven’t personally read either of them. If you have other favorite I Spy books, please share!
Thank you! I was one of the ones who requested this list on Instagram! So excited to look through these with my kids. Really appreciate the work you put into it. 🙂
I second In the Town All Year Round and Mamoko – they are brilliant. We also just checked out Can You Find Me? by Surya Sajnani and love it too.
Thank you!! Especially can’t wait to read Adele & Simon – looks so cute!!
There’s a new “Pea” book. It goes through the alphabet again. Haven’t read it but saw it at the library last week.
My son enjoyed the 1001 Things to Spot books from Usborne books. You look for a certain number of each item on each page. They were great to take church! I might have been distracted from the sermon when he was looking!
Yes to the 1001 usborne! My son is really into farms so that one is his favorite. But when we went to the beach we read the Vacation one in the car a ton! And I’m saving the Christmas one to surprise him 🙂 He also looooves the year/Day In The Life series. Again with the farm. But also the day at the zoo and the year at a construction site too.
I have a reluctant reader and he LOVES In the Town Year Round. At first I was kind of underwhelmed by the illustrations but then I started to notice all the little stories happening throughout the pages and now I love it too. My son tends to just flip around and study and chat about pages.
Thank you for this post! I’ve added all these books to my library list! I can add some other books that engage my reluctant reader:
Follow Me – a finger maze book
Journey – Aaron Becker – no secret since it’s a popular one. We always come back to it.
I’d love to hear your favorite wordless books – though hmmm I think I remember you saying you don’t love reading books without words…
My son is a very visual guy and seems drawn to books that tell the story with just pictures. He tends to bounce all around when I try to read to him.
Yes! Here are some of my favorite wordless books: https://everyday-reading.com/tips-for-reading-wordless-books-and-10/
And I’ll have to check out Follow Me. I’ve never heard of it!
Thank you!!
Wacky Wednesday is one of our family favorites!
We love the Pea books, and there’s a new one- LMNO Pea-quel. It helped us survive an hour-long line for eclipse glasses ?
Have you seen the Shine-A-Light books by Carron Brown and Wesley Robins. My kids went crazy for them! The hidden object is revealed when you shine a light through the back of the page. They are all great, but Secrets of Animal Camouflage is our favorite.
ps- I just looked closer at our books and Carron Brown writes all of them with different co-authors 🙂
Great list! Which book is shown in the picture with the flamingos?
Its The Odd One Out: http://bit.ly/2y1Xfnf
We love the Snowmen at Night series, as each page has 5 or 6 things to find–a t-rex, a Santa Claus, a cat…I don’t remember the others.
My son LOVES these kinds of books! Totally agree with the Usborne 1001 series, as well as the Day In The Life series, like a Day at the Zoo or a Year At the Farm etc. and our new current favorite series are My Big Wimmelbooks (came out last year). Along that vein, we got a new board game at christmas called I Saw It First, and we all love it! It’s so good in that search and find spirit 🙂
Sometimes we buy duplicates of the I Spy books at thrift stores and the kids race each other to find the objects.
Oh, THAT is a fun idea!
We loved Animalia by Graeme Base – the pictures are beautiful!
This is so cute and helpful! Can you tell me which book the flamingo page is from?!
I believe it’s from The Odd One Out. It’s definitely by Britta Teckentrup!
My family’s absolute favorite is “The Waterhole” by Graeme Base.
Our son, now 31, also loved the Where’s Waldo books and others. We would look at them after we/ he read a book together. Now he is married to a gal that likes Elvis Presley. I gave them a Where’s Elvis book for a one year for a Christmas gift. So they were both very happy to get the Elvis book as a present. He got to re-live a happy childhood memory all over again.
My dad bought “Pierre the Maze Detective: The Search for the Stolen Maze Stone” by Hiro Kamigaki for my son a few years ago and he can still get lost in it. He’s 10 now and when he first got it, he explored it freely with a little guidance from the instructions; now he pays more attention to the order/limitations of the maze. In other words, it can be enjoyed at many ages and offers challenges for those who want more. Strongly recommended for school-aged kids and up.
Could you point out the books above that might be more interesting for older kids? They don’t have to be challenging the way “The Maze Stone” is – “Where’s Waldo” and above, perhaps. Thanks!
Let’s Find Momo is a favorite around here. It’s great for little ones (1 or 1.5 and up) because is fairly easy. It’s a wordless book and you just find Momo the dog on each page but the photography is cute. There are other Momo books that are a little tricker that are for older kids or adults.
The are both old but absolute classics – Puzzle Island and Animalia. Both have animals hidden in the pictures and word clues to help you solve the overall puzzle.
Once Upon a Magic Book by Lily Murray. Has beautiful illustrations! My son loved it but definitely gender neutral.
If You Go Down to the Woods Today is great too. Seems to be a growing series… adorable woodland creature illustrations.