The co-creator of the “I Spy” series uses a similar format in this holiday offering full of glowing photographs of tiny toys and sweet treats. As in previous volumes, readers can search each spread for the miniature items craftily hidden within, enumerated in rhyming lists in large type next to each photograph. Wick uses phrases from the familiar lines of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” as an organizational framework for his lush photos of a cozy house on Christmas Eve all decked out for Santa’s arrival. (He includes the poem on the endpapers.) Some spreads focus on one area of the house and others on single images from the poem, such as a whirlwind of sugarplums or an open bundle of toys. Eagle-eyed readers will spot additional clever details such as a recurring white dove and the gabled house in a snow globe that duplicates the home featured throughout. This volume covers much of the same holiday territory as I Spy Christmas by Marzollo and Wick (1992), but fans of this sort of picture puzzle will welcome another challenging Christmas brainteaser. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-7)
