Color Crunch! Mix It Up by Herve' Tullet

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN. ARE YOU READY?

TAP THAT LITTLE GREY SPOT JUST A LITTLE. WHAT HAPPENS?

Herve' Tullet is back with another brain stretching "interactive book," this time devoted to the basics of colors--primary, secondary, and tertiary. With dots of paint so real-looking--wet and shiny--that you expect your finger tip to be colored as you follow the creator's directions,

Tullet takes youngsters through what happens when they combine blobs of blue and yellow and red, producing such realistic results with each page turn that they seem to be occurring for real! Tullet advances through the secondary colors--orange, green, and purple-- and proceeds into mixing in white or black to create hues and shades--white and red becomes pink in a wink of a page turn. Want to see?  OK!

Tullet tells the reader to close the book and smoosh the runny colors on a double page spread, and then tempts speculation as he asks readers to predict what will happen. What happens when you give the book a shake and turn the page? Look and see!

Although this book is aimed toward preschoolers learning the science and art of colors, the faux interactive aspect will have even older kids and adults drawn into the fun, shaking and squishing the book on cue. And it's going to be hard not to break out some paints and play with the knowledge Tullet imparts as soon as he bids readers goodbye.

YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN. LOOK! PLAY!

And Mix It Up!  they will, as author-illustrator Herve' Tullet invites them to do in his 2014 innovative virtual art lesson without the mess for Chronicle Books. As he does in his brilliant and best-selling Press Here and Help! We Need a Title! (read reviews here), Tullet joins other author-illustrators, such as Mo Willems, Kathryn Otoshi, Bill Cotter, and Alex Lluch, who have taken on the challenge of electronic storytelling to show that there's a lot of possibilities going on yet between the covers of the classic picture book. "Rivaling an iPad for its sheer fun and interactive elements," is the way School Library Journal describes Tullet's latest in their starred rave review.