Photo courtesy of Village BooksBusiness
Find Waldo in The Woodlands: Local Businesses join together in annual event celebrating ‘Shop Local’
Where’s Waldo? In The Woodlands, of course! Celebrating its fourteenth anniversary in July 2026, Find Waldo Local has become a beloved summertime event in communities nationwide. This year, Candlewick Press and the American Booksellers Association are again teaming up with 325 independent bookstores nationwide, including our community bookshop, Village Books, for some hide-and-seek fun designed to encourage residents to patronize their local businesses. There is no charge to participate, and the hunt lasts for the entire month of July.
Families love joining the scavenger hunt to find the iconic children’s book character, with his red-and-white-striped shirt and black glasses, hidden in twenty-four local businesses, including Learning Express, Kevin Brady Library, MilkShake Factory and Tumbleweeds and Notions. Find Waldo Local is a wonderful way to support the Shop Local movement by increasing foot traffic to a variety of stores. “This is our fourth year of hosting Find Waldo in The Woodlands, and we have some wonderful new businesses this year,” says Teresa Kenney, owner of Village Books. “We love partnering with local businesses to bring this fun activity to our community each year.”
To join in the fun, people can simply pick up a “Find Waldo Local in The Woodlands” stamp card at Village Books, 9955 Woodlands Parkway, Suite F beginning July 1. With each miniature Waldo they spot, searchers get their card stamped or signed by the participating shop. Eagle-eyed hunters can also look for Wizard Whitebeard hidden in Village Books! Collecting store stamps or signatures at twenty or more businesses will entitle diligent seekers entry into a grand-prize drawing for Waldo books, as well as other prizes donated by the participating businesses. All participants are welcome to attend the celebration party at Village Books on Sunday, August 2 at 3 p.m.
Martin Handford’s collections of crowd scenes took the world by storm in the late 1980s, and since then the books have held a cherished place on bookstore shelves, in family libraries, and in classrooms around the world. More than 80 million Waldo books have been sold worldwide, and they’ve been translated into over thirty languages.
For more information about hunting for Waldo in The Woodlands, call Village Books at 281-771-8462. To see a map of all participating stores, visit www.indiebound.org.
