SLJ 10/1/05
WICK, Walter. Can You See What I See?: The Night Before Christmas: Picture Puzzles to Search and Solve. illus. by author. 35p. with CD. CIP. Scholastic/Cartwheel. Oct. 2005. Tr $13.99. ISBN 0-439-76927-2. LC 2005005644.
K-Gr 2-Wick's familiar "I Spy" formula-rhymed text that lists objects in juxtaposed double-page illustrations, with the invitation for viewers to locate those objects-is here tied loosely to the Clement Moore poem. The poem itself is printed on the endpapers and is not referred to further except in short phrases such as "All Snug" as headings for the photographs of Christmas decorations, cookies, candies, and toys. Libraries owning copies of Wick and Jean Marzollo's I Spy Christmas (Scholastic, 1992) can skip this one.-S. P.
HB Nov/Dec
Walter Wick Can You See What I See?: The Night before
Christmas: Picture Puzzles to Search and Solve; illus. with
photos by the author
40 pp. Cartwheel/Scholastic 10/05 isbn 0-439-76927-2 $13.99
(Primary, Intermediate)
It's not a Christmas miracle, but it's pretty awesome. Wick's captivating color-photo picture-puzzle tableaux illustrate fragments ("such a clatter!"; "new fallen snow") plucked from Clement Clarke Moore's classic "The Night before Christmas," the text of which is reproduced on the book's endpapers. The rhymes accompanying each double-page spread are forgettable ("Can you see / what I see? / A penguin, a pie, / a red candy heart, / 3 little elves, / a bear in a cart"), but the art is up to Wick's usual standards and then some. Each panoramic image -- a toy nook, complete with miniature bedroom ("all snug"); a wallpaper-like assemblage of holiday confections ("visions of sugarplums") -- reveals the most minuscule of details, right down to the last white dot on a nonpareil. nell beram
Kirkus 11/1/05
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

Walter Wick is the photographer of the bestselling I Spy series as well as the author and photographer of the bestselling Can You See What I See? series. He lives with his wife, Linda, in Connecticut.