Note to spooky grandparents who plan to send Halloween gifts from afar: Don’t send candy.  My next door neighbor already plans to give my kids twenty pieces.  Instead, send a copy of I SPY Spooky Mansion.

“Oh, come one Daddy Troy,” you might say.  “You had tons of candy when you were a kid, and you are now only a slightly overweight middle aged guy.”  You might be right, adverbs aside, that a once a year candy binge does not add to the national childhood obesity problem or promote long term tooth decay, but I am not so sure.  Finding a direct correlation would be difficult, but with childhood obesity tripling in the past 25 years  and candy sales trending higher and higher, one has to wonder if this is a good place to make a stand about nutrition.

Or you could take the cowardly route.  Every Halloween night in our house the halloween monster comes and throws away 90% of the candy in our household.   The kids don’t know about this monster yet, but I am sure they will come to discover him soon as they start to track their bounty.

Or you could buy a copy of I SPY Spooky Mansion in addition to all the candy.  Who am I to judge?

I must have been hiding under a pumpkin for the past few years as I had not head about the I Spy series from Scholastic.  Now both my son and I are hooked.  In I SPY you are presented with a beautifully crafted image, say of a spooky room full of cobwebs and bookcases. Embedded in that image are hidden items that you have to spy.  For example, in the image below there are goggle on the skeleton in the lower left corner.  Can you find the other pair? Eventually you earn keys and access to other rooms in the mansion.

With games for the iPod, iPod Touch, Mac, Windows Wii and more, it makes a really great Halloween gift, and it lasts a lot longer than candy.  My seven year old plays it for hours, although not continuously as he has a daily screen time limit.  Remember the whole childhood obesity thing.

Here is what I like about the game, as well as the whole I Spy series from Scholastic.

1. It is not time based or score based. It does not need to be paused to go to dinner.  You simply come back to wherever you were.  2.  Its not scary spooky, but instead fun spooky.  A seven year old does at ever feel scared by it.  Instead he is looking for a broom or a black cat.
3.  The graphics are beautifully crafted, and I must think that this sinks into a kids consciousness.   Check out this story about the photographer Walter Wick and his books.
4.  Kids practice a little reading.
5.  There are synonyms and other word tricks.  For example, a pin might be a straight pin or a bowling pin.
6.  Its UX is seamless.  There are some bad iphone apps out there.  This one, alongside the actual computer app, are easy to use for a kid.  The interface never gets in the way.
7.  There are other iSpy properties, all equally fun and cool.
8.  The variations are clever.  For example there might be a wispy cloud to look into instead of room.  In some spaces there is an X-ray feature.

9.  I have found few games that can challenge me and a seven year old at the same time.  I get most things a lot faster than him, but there are a few that stump me in the short term.

At just a buck for the iphone app,   its even cheaper than 20 pieces of candy (minus the ipod), and the Halloween monster can play it too.
Thanks to the folks at Scholastic for sending us a review copy of the iphone app.