I’m clearly a sucker for a puzzle book I can share with my daughter, and so I was happy that Chuck Whelon, a cartoonist, children’s book author, and boardgame illustrator, let me know about his Kickstarter project Wizard Pickles.

Once I saw the PDF, I quickly backed it myself. More puzzle books in the world are a good thing.

The art style in this tale of country fairs, wizards, and pickle gnomes evokes the Where’s Waldo series, as do many of the puzzles: Find some things in a chaotic picture. But the “thing” to find might be a door meeting a long list of criteria in a town square full of doors that are all somewhat similar.

A sample puzzle from Wizard Pickles. Image by Chuck Whelon.

That’s only one of the puzzle types you’ll find, though. Two spreads feature a maze you have to navigate. Another features a logic puzzle of truth and lies. Another makes you deduce which square on a map is the one to visit. Another is a spot-the-difference puzzle with a twist: Some of the items on one side are missing, and can in fact be found on the other pages.

Meta-references such as that are easy to find, giving the book a distinct Graeme Base feel. And the meta-references are just the start. A seemingly minor plot point at the beginning becomes an overarching puzzle to tackle. Practiced solvers will see many clues to this last challenge throughout the book, some obvious and some less so.

I’ve not yet dug into the puzzles deeply enough to solve them all, but I’m looking forward to paging through it leisurely with my daughter when the book ships.

izard Pickles tells the story of young Mazie Pickles and her Aunt Wilma. Aunt Wilma works as a wizard at the local castle. Well, she did, until angering Queen Blackthorne, who is set to award the Golden Cup at the annual Picklefest. For one, Aunt Wilma has lost her wand, which was found by pickle gnomes. The pickle gnomes had a glorious time using the magical wand to reek havoc throughout the village. Now, Mazie needs to help her aunt retrieve the wand before anything worse should happen (hint:  it does!)

Every page in Wizard Pickles is filled with different picture puzzles for readers to solve. They range from simple search-and-find activities to muddling mazes, cryptic codes, and complex logic problems that will keep you baffled for many hours of puzzling fun! More than a puzzle book, Wizard Pickles contains a mystery story that runs throughout the whole book.

Awesome. Yep, that describes this book.

As a kid, I loved puzzle books, especially ones with fantasy, tons of details and a touch of craziness. This book has all of those things. And let's not forget the illustrations because they are wonderful. There's so much detail and all sorts of little things thrown in, making sure that one discovers something new every time they go through the pages. The puzzles themselves vary enough in difficulty to insure that a kid will have some success, while others won't get bored.

I let my son and daughter (10 and 8) go through this, and they both adored it. Not only did they find the puzzles fun, but they enjoyed fingering through the illustrations and pointing different things out to each other. This is definitely one that my son will be placing next to his bed so he can take a peek before dozing off to sleep at night.

This is a book I can whole heartedly recommend. Between the fun puzzles and the very imaginative illustrations, kids (especially reluctant readers and knowledge buddies) will enjoy diving into this and be sucked into every page.

I received a free copy for an honest review.