Where's Wally? (called Where's Waldo? in North America) is a series of children's puzzle books created by the English illustrator Martin Handford, first published on 25 June 1987. The books consist of a series of detailed double-page spread illustrations each depicting hundreds of people doing a variety of amusing things at a location. Readers are challenged to find a character named Wally and his friends hidden throughout the pages.
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 two television programmes (the 1991 Where's Wally? animated series and the 2019 Where's Waldo? animated series), a comic strip and a series of video games.
As of 2007, more than 73 million Where's Wally? books had been sold around the world since the debut of the series in 1987. The series has been translated into 26 languages and is published in over 50 countries.
History In 1986, illustrator Martin Handford, a graduate of the University for the Creative Arts in Kent, was asked by art director David Bennett, at Walker Books in London, to develop a book of detailed crowd scenes. Bennett was inspired by the book series Busy Places by Philippe Dupasquier. While the book was being prepared for Bologna Children's Book Fair, someone at Walker Books suggested Handford hide a distinctive-looking character in crowd scenes for readers to search for. Handford came up with the idea of "Wally", a world and time traveller dressed in red and white stripes."Up Against the Waldo", by Cyndi Stivers, 14 December 1990, Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 8 February 2010.
The first Where's Wally? book was published on 25 June 1987. , Walker Books. Retrieved 20 September 2012. First published in the United Kingdom by Walker Books, the series was introduced in the United States under the title Where's Waldo? because an executive at the book's initial American publisher, Little, Brown and Company, disliked the name "Wally" because it reminded him of Wallis Simpson. American publishing rights were later taken on by Candlewick Press, the American subsidiary of Walker Books.
The books became extremely popular internationally and the character name was localised in a variety of regions, where Wally was known as Walter in Germany, Charlie in France, Van Lang in Vietnam, Jonas in Lithuania, and Ubaldo in Italy, among others. The franchise also spawned other media in a more storyline-based form, including a 1991 television series, Where's Wally?, a comic strip Where's Wally? and a series of video games. In the early 1990s, a topless beachgoer in a Where's Waldo puzzle caused controversy in the US and caused BJ's Wholesale Club and certain school libraries to pull the book from shelves, leading to its appearance in the American Library Association's list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 1990s.
Handford continued to publish books in the series, and sometimes it took him up to eight weeks to draw two-page illustrations of the elusive "Wally" and the many characters surrounding him."Interview with Martin Handford" , Scholastic Book Club. Retrieved 7 February 2010. He made Wally progressively harder to find by reducing his size on the page and surrounding him by more characters. In the first book, Wally was on average big. This was reduced to in the second book, in the third, and between in the fourth through seventh books. He has also been surrounded by more characters, from 225 on the first book's first page to about 850 on the last book's first page.
In January 2007, Entertainment Rights purchased the Where's Wally? franchise. On 1 April 2009, Entertainment Rights went into voluntary administration. On the same day, Boomerang Media acquired all of Entertainment Rights' subsidiaries including Entertainment Rights itself, Big Idea and Classic Media. The following month, Boomerang Media began preparations to unify former British and US subsidiaries of Entertainment Rights under the name "Classic Media", while Big Idea would operate under its own name. The Entertainment Rights PLC company was folded in December 2010. In 2012, Classic Media was acquired by DreamWorks Animation. DreamWorks Animation was then acquired by NBCUniversal in 2016, thus Universal Pictures gaining the rights to most of Entertainment Rights' catalogue of works.
Characters
, whose name was localised for certain international editions, for example Waldo in the North American and Swedish editions. Over time, more characters were added to find in each scene. , Wally's girlfriend who first appeared in the Ultimate Fun Book, and was replaced by her identical twin sister Wenda after they appeared together in Where's Wally: The Magnificent Poster Book. , a friend of Wally who replaced her twin sister Wilma for In Hollywood (although she previously appeared alongside Wilma in The Magnificent Poster Book). , Wally's arch-enemy, who made his print debut in The Magnificent Poster Book. He appears nearly the same as Wally, except that his clothes are yellow and black striped instead of red and white, his glasses have a blue tint to them, and he has a moustache. He also has an English accent in the television series. Although it is told that "his bad deeds are many", he is not depicted in the books doing anything particularly nasty, but in the television series, he is frequently seen to be attempting to steal Wally's magical walking stick. His name "Odlaw" is simply a reversal of "Waldo" from the American editions, although he is still called "Odlaw" in the United Kingdom as well. , Wally's dog, first appeared in The Ultimate Fun Book, where he was identified as Wenda's dog. Only his tail can be found, with the exception of the final page of Where's Wally: The Wonder Book, which depicts all of Woof, and the six activity books released between 1993 and 1995, starting with The Truly Terrific Activity Book, where Woof shows himself to the reader. In the 2019 TV series, Woof returns in the episode "A Wanderer's Christmas" and the second season. , a grey dog who could be a miniature schnauzer and also known as Arf for short in the 2019 animated series. , first seen in The Fantastic Journey. His signature is his exceptionally long beard, which is often the key to finding him. In his first appearance, he was responsible for sending Wally on a quest to discover the truth about himself, and he has tagged along on Wally's travels ever since. His appearance in The Ultimate Fun Book, however, is in only one scene in "Old Friends" and his presence is unmentioned in the book and acts as one of the background characters. are Wally's devoted fan-club that first appeared in Where's Wally?: The Ultimate Fun Book (1990). They turn up wherever Wally goes, dressed in the same red-and-white striped outfit. While 25 appear in most books, there are in comparison, 99 of them in the Ultimate Fun Book. In the earlier books, a character appears in every scene, which the reader must look to find out who it is. This is because no information on the characters is given in the books aside from the task to look for them. The characters appeared as background characters and all had something unique to them, like blonde hair or a ginger beard. In some cases, characters from previous scenes would also appear. , Wally and Wenda's arch-nemesis, a villainous pre-teen female Anti-Wanderer who is a genderbend version of Odlaw in the 2019 animated series. She sports a yellow baseball cap with black stripes and glasses with angular black frames, and shoulder-length black hair with a yellow streak. She wears a long-sleeved black and yellow top, and a yellow skirt, knee-high black socks with white cuffs and blue shoes. , a hungry ferret who is Odlulu's henchman and appeared in the 2019 animated series.
Publications Primary books As of 2026, there are seven primary Wally books. The books were released both in hard-cover (for the original books) and subsequently in paperback. Each contains around a dozen scenes with Wally hidden in them. Each book has additional hidden objects and/or characters hidden in each scene specific to that book. The books usually reserve telling the reader about some item(s) to find until the end of the book so that the reader will have to go through the book again. The books contain checklists for each scene of interesting things or people to find.
Where's Wally? (North American title: Where's Waldo?) (1987) Where's Wally Now? (North American title: Find Waldo Now, renamed Where's Waldo Now? later) (1988) Where's Wally? The Fantastic Journey (North American title: The Great Waldo Search, renamed Where's Waldo? The Fantastic Journey later) (1989) Where's Wally in Hollywood? (North American title: Where's Waldo in Hollywood?) (1993) Where's Wally? The Wonder Book (North American title: Where's Waldo? The Wonder Book) (1997) Where's Wally? The Great Picture Hunt! (North American title: Where's Waldo? The Great Picture Hunt!) (2006) Where's Wally? The Incredible Paper Chase (North American title: Where's Waldo? The Incredible Paper Chase) (2009)
There have been three rounds of revised editions. In 1993, to coincide with the publication of In Hollywood, the first three books were reprinted with Wenda, Woof and the Wally Watchers added to the original illustrations, and the books were numbered on the cover. A "pocket edition" of the first book was also published, in a tiny A6 format (). Wally is even harder to spot when shrunk to this degree, and later printings included a free magnifying lens.
In 1997, to coincide with the publication of The Wonder Book, special "Tenth Anniversary Editions" of the first four books were published with a distinct silver border on their front covers, and added later-introduced characters and objects to look for in every scene, and also moved Wally to different locations from the original versions. These special editions appeared in both standard and "pocket" formats.
In 2007, for the 20th anniversary of the first book, the special editions of 1997 (and The Great Picture Hunt) were re-released with a new cover into paperback format. The silver borders on the books were removed and instead, the books were numbered in the top left-hand corner of the cover. Aside from the new numbering system, some of the front covers were also revised otherwise; for example, the "NOW?" on the cover of Where's Wally Now? was given a 2D effect, but it was originally designed to look like a 3D shape.
Other books In addition to the primary books, other books have also been published in the Wally franchise. The first alternate-format Wally book was the Ultimate Fun Book. In addition to standard Wally scenes, this paperback activity book featured other types of games and activities, as well as cardboard punch-outs and stickers. The Magnificent Poster Book, which was a large-format book of posters including five scenes from past books and six new scenes (later included in The Great Picture Hunt). Where's Wally?: The Ultimate Fun Book (1990) Activity book Where's Wally?: The Magnificent Poster Book! (1991) Larger book containing cut-out posters Where's Wally? The Dazzling Deep-sea Divers Sticker Book (1994) Sticker book and play scene Where's Wally? The Fabulous Flying Carpets Sticker Book (1994) Sticker book and play scene A Where's Wally? Fun Fact Book: Plundering Pirates (2000) Educational Where's Wally? book with new scenes and facts A Where's Wally? Fun Fact Book: Fighting Knights (2000) Educational Where's Wally? book with new scenes and facts Where's Wally? (2008) A £1 World Book Day Book Where's Wally? The Spectacular Poster Book (2010) Larger book containing cut-out posters Where's Wally? The Search for the Lost Things (2012)