I got this book 1001 Things To Spot In The Town and Birch absolutely loves it. And I do too- I don’t get bored looking at it and I can usually find something to laugh at on each page. There are 1001 things for you to spot based on a legend on each page: find the 5 waiters in an Italian cafe, find the 8 kids swimming in an Asian river village, locate the 9 lobster pots in a new england port town, etc. The pages are dense with little vignettes- a dog and bird vying for the same piece of pizza that a boy has dropped or a waiter whose tray has flipped over. The book is also giving Birch some counting practice, a look at what other cities look like around the world and is helping him to use his eye coordination. (Believe me, spotting those objects on each page is not easy!) There are a whole series of the books- spot sea animals (see photo below), animals (see other photo below), fairies, bugs, etc.

The publisher is Usborne Books. They have super friendly family and school policies. You can return a book within 30 days for a full refund if you are unhappy with it: they have a Lifetime Replacement Policy, any book will be replaced at half price: if a school staff buys a total over
$85.00 in books they will donate books to the school library or favorite charity.

I asked one of the book reps at Usborne books, William Waldman, to name his 2 favorite books that they sell so I could get a sense of what else is good in their inventory.

He mentioned these:  
The Illustrated Dictionary of Math
A great book for students in grades 5-7.  It is a parents and student’s resource book for all things math.

The First Thousand Words in Hebrew.  It is a picture dictionary.  These book are available in:  French, Italian, Hebrew, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Latin, Polish and Portuguese.

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4. Do You Have A Parenting Blind Spot? (March 12th, 2009)
5. The Moxie Spot (July 7th, 2008)