I Spy With My Little Eye: Hockey (I Spy With My Little Eye)

Do you know what a Zamboni is? If you do, perhaps you are a hockey fan. Long ago the "ice was resurfaced by a tractor pulling a scraper to shave the ice." People then rushed onto the ice shoveling, watering, doing a bit more touch up and then waiting for the water on the rink to freeze again. There have been many advances in the game of hockey over the past 150 years. Helmets have only been used extensively since the 1970s, players use one jersey for home play, another for their road games, and most sticks are now made from "composite" materials. In this book you'll learn a lot of trivia in the "Photo Fact" section beneath each "changed" photograph. If you love hockey and pride yourself on having a very keen eye for detail you're going to enjoy this book. On the left-hand page you will see an interesting hockey-related photograph with a mini poetic clue underneath. On the right-hand page you're going to find the same photograph with many changes and a Photo Fact section beneath it. One photograph has only 14 changes while you can find another with a whopping 39. There are fourteen puzzles for you to explore. You're going to have to have a lot of patience to find thirty-nine changes! I thought this book was well written and the photographs exciting and interesting, but there is an "almost" fatal flaw you won't notice until you get the book. Unless you are willing to mark up your copy of the book circling the changes, it is hardly worth the asking price for one use, especially if you'd like to have more than one youngster take advantage of this marvelously fun book. However, I did find one way to solve that dilemma. I took a piece of clear plastic wrap and covered the right-hand page with it and then I could easily circle the changes and count them. I had a great time, but unless you are a smarty pants you'll have a LOT of trouble spotting some of the very subtle changes in these pics. Have fun!

It is a lovely book with wonderful hockey pictures, but much too difficult for my 4 year old and a few too many differences on some of the pages to keep track of for even an older child/adult. My 4 year old does love the photos and hockey theme, though.