The review
Do you remember Where's Wally? Growing up, I spent a lot of time on hidden picture books and a single book gave me hours of replayable fun!
Last year, Foolet received a lovely set of 5 books from his aunt, and I learnt that they're called "wimmelbilderbuch" or "wimmelbook". This is a large-format, wordless picture book. The pages feature detailed scenes full of rich details, and are filled with various characters or things to be spotted.
This series focuses on transportation (surprise surprise!) and construction themes, so as you can imagine, he was pretty chuffed!
As there are no words in the book, this is a kind of book that a toddler can independently read by themselves. I've observed Foolet spend up to 30 minutes quietly observing the pages by himself, absorbing the scenes and the pictures.
The books all start with a page with suggested things and people to spot, which are helpful conversation starters.
The series is written and illustrated by 3 different individuals, the illustrations also have their own distinct style, ranging from the high degree of real detail to the slight fantastical. There's some progressive visuals in the book as well, a reflection for our society and current topics.
If you'd also like to get involved in the conversation, it's quite fun trying to spot things together, and you'd be surprised at the pattern recognition from your children! I could only find this book on Taobao, and in Chinese. There isn't an English translated version I could easily find, but since this book is less reliant on words, it still translates pretty well even if you're using the Chinese or German versions!