A Puzzling Day at Castle Macpelican

by Scoular Anderson

Thomas and Esmerelda visit Castle MacPelican, where they go on a treasure hunt and solve a series of other puzzles

Genres: Picture Books

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Scoular Anderson was born in 1946 and brought up in Argyll. He studied at Glasgow School of Art, then worked in London as a illustrator.

Reviews

[Gustavo Yepez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m cleaning out my bookcase and I wanted to give a proper burial to a few books that have been with me for over 20 years across several countries.

Like most children, I was fascinated by castles because of the epic tales of knights, dragons and wizards, but Castle MacPelican showed me that people in the modern age could live in castles too. The book has a simple plot and many “Where’s Waldo” style activities, but I ignored most of that. What did do was plunge my mind into the illustrations and fantasize for hours about what I would do if I lived in Castle MacPelican. A large family living all together, some 30 dogs, hundreds of doors, a myriad different rooms, endless gardens… I was already a quiet child but if you handed me this book you wouldn’t hear from me for hours.

[Sofie Strömvall · Rating 4 out of 5]

How I LOVE this one. So many dear childhood memories!

[Capn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A less chaotic Where's Waldo, with more to do in it

Meets expectations - I'm a big fan of Martin Handford's classics, and I feel that Scoular Anderson has done the genre justice.

Hector MacPelican has set Thomas and Esmeralda an amazing treasure hunt in and around Castle MacPelican. Along the way there are lots of other puzzles to solve and things to spot too. Join Thomas and Esmeralda on their search and see if your eyes and wits are as sharp as theirs!
- Take part in Hector's treasure hunt
- Find the twenty MacPelican dogs in each picture
- Spot the thief and see what he's stolen

Knocked a star off just because it was a stable format (a maze for two harried spiders on each page; a continuing treasure hunt; spot the thief and what he took; find something for Aunt Forgetlia; play I Spy with Uncle Figment; count all 20 dogs, and more, usually one scene-specific task, such as an additional maze or finding task). There's a lot to do, but it's not highly varied. No logic problems, no math, no word-play.

As stated in my review of John Michael Talbot's It's for You, I am not an educator, so my guesses at target ages might be a bit off the mark. A much younger audience in the case of A Puzzling Day at Castle MacPelican, definitely elementary/primary school (grades 2 to 3-ish? Maybe younger?). This book is a "level 2" (of 3) difficulty, apparently.

At the back of this book is a list of other Walker Puzzle Books:

Skill Level 1
One Green Island
A Busy Day at the Building Site

Skill Level 2
A Puzzling Day at Castle MacPelican
The Pirates of Doom
The Planet of Terror

Skill Level 3
The Magic Hourglass: A Time-Travel Adventure Game
The Magic Globe: An Around-the-World Adventure Game