Pressing On: Tap to Play by Salina Yoon

TAP ME TWICE AND SHOUT "BLIP!!"

OUCH!! NOT SO HARD!

Blip, a little gamester with googly eyes, a cowlick and stick legs, needs some help getting to a blue bar (with numbers 5-4-3-2-1) on the other side of the page.  Who could resist helping out such a charming little guy!

In Salina Yoon's Tap to Play! (Balzer and Bray, 2014), Blip needs quite a bit of help--shaking the book to help him bounce, (Warning! I bleep under stress!), turning the book to slide him toward the corner, even huffing and puffing to blow Blip up, tilting the book to slip him into position for the final reward, a door with someone interesting on the other side.

KNOCK TO PLAY!

Since the publication of Herve' Tullet's highly original Press Here (Chronicle Books, 2011), there has been a mini-tsunami of picture books turning virtual experience on its head, playing with the idea of video gaming, a sort of art imitating nature (in the form of game apps), that has produced assorted sorties into the creation of story pages that act like touch screen electronic games, substituting the page turn for screen animation. Yoon's newest has an appealing little character whose goal is to game his way into finding a friend, with a touch of on-page slapstick that may appeal to the younger user. The fun of his back talk as Blip gets shaken, tapped, and tickled into success will get some readers across the finish line to Game Over.

For a taste of the anti-virtual metabook format, read reviews of other such popular books here.