Where’s Waldo

Where's Wally?

Martin Handford with (left to right) Wizard Whitebeard, Woof, Odlaw, Wenda, and Wally
List of titles
Author	Martin Handford
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Children's literature, puzzle
Publisher	UK: Walker Books US: Little Brown & Co then Candlewick Press
Published	1987–present
Media type	Print (hardback and paperback)

Where's Wally?, published in the US and Canada as Where's Waldo?, is a British series of children's puzzle books created by English illustrator Martin Handford. The books consist of a series of detailed double-page spread illustrations depicting dozens or more people doing a variety of amusing things at a given location. Readers are challenged to find a character named Wally hidden in the group.

Wally is identified by his red-and-white-striped shirt, bobble hat, and glasses, but many illustrations contain red herrings involving deceptive use of red-and-white striped objects. Later entries in the long-running book series added other targets for readers to find in each illustration. The books have also inspired a television show (Where's Wally?: The Animated Series), comic strip and a series of video games.

In 1986, Handford was asked by his art director at Walker Books to draw a character with peculiar features so that his pictures of crowds had a focal point. After much thinking, he came up with the idea of "Wally", a world traveller and time travel aficionado who always dresses in red and white. Sometimes it would take him up to eight weeks to draw a two-page sketch of the elusive "Wally" and the characters surrounding him.

The first Where's Wally? book was published on 21 September 1987. The Where's Wally? books were published in the United Kingdom by Walker Books and in the United States under the title Where's Waldo? first by Little, Brown and Company before being taken on by Candlewick Press (Walker Books' American subsidiary publishing company). The first four titles were originally printed in Italy, but later reprinted in China.

The books became extremely popular and were localised for many different territories, with name changes for Wally in certain regions. The franchise also spawned other media in a more storyline-based form, including a television series, a comic strip and a series of video games.

As the series goes on, Wally progressively becomes harder to find, reducing his size on the page and surrounding him by more other characters. In the first book, Wally was on average 0.99 square centimetres (0.153 square inches) big. This was reduced to 0.80 cm² (0.124 sq in) in the second book, 0.33 cm² (0.051 sq in) in the third, and between 0.20 and 0.17 cm² (0.031 and 0.026 sq in) in the fourth through seventh book. He has also been surrounded by more other characters, from 225 on the first book's first page to about 850 on the last book's first page.