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.

Whatchamacallit? I Am Blop! by Herve' Tullet

BLACK BLOP

WHITE BLOP

 !POLB REVOCSID

BLOP is a blob--a four-lobed blob, a shape that can be almost anything the mind can imagine--a flower, a cloud, a butterfly, a Blop family, a classroom of blops in neat rows, what-ever-you-want blops.

Herve' Tullet's latest, I am Blop! (Phaidon, 2013) explores what can be done with a faithful shape like the blop. Blue blop teaches colors with an acetate overlap of yellow which yields a green blop which works both ways, forward and back. Pink and purple overlays play with a touch of red.

There are blops with faces, blops becoming animals, broken blops, measled blops, even invisible blops, blops as famous paintings, blops seen on a mirrored page. There are fill-in-the-blank blops and even punch-out blops that kids can take away to put into their own blop stories.

Herve' Tullet's books play with the very idea of the book, extending the two-dimensional page into the non-dimensional world of the imagination, as he did in in his 2011 best-seller Press Here (see my review here) and his equally imaginative The Book with a Hole. Tullet's little books have broken new ground--genre-breaking, interactive books with deceptively simple art on traditional white pages which nevertheless become interactive when mixed with the imagination of the child.  This one is no exception.

 Publishers Weekly puts in "... even the format is a novelty," and Kirkus Reviews quips "Tullet will intrigue children and encourage them to think outside the blop."

Sound Stage: Say Zoop! by Herve' Tullet

PUT YOUR FINGER ON THIS DOT AND SAY "OH!"

It's "have finger, will travel," in Herve' Tullet's newest meta-book, a board book where the touch of a forefinger and a page turn makes all sorts of things happen. The yellow circle becomes many. It grows bigger. Tapping it quickly produces rows and rows of the dots.

AND NOW WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF OHS!

WOW!

The "Ohs" change colors, multiply, and form lines. They intersect. They curve. They circle and spiral. They do whatever you tell them to do--it seems.

Tullet's latest interactive board book, Say Zoop! (Chronicle Books, 2017, also adds the dimension of sound, as youngsters are urged to "Say Zoop!" say "OHOAHAHOHOH!" and "ROOOH! RAAAH!" It's both eye candy and a chance to sound off in one little book.

"WHAT A RACKET!"

Aside from the imaginative fantasy fun with fingertips, this book stands out for its beauty of design. Says Publishers Weekly "...the pages grow more beautiful as well, with a Mondrian-like palette of basic primaries," and Kirkus Reviews adds, "... "Another infectiously joyful romp from the panjandrum of playful pointillism."

This latest title joins Herve' Tullet's best-selling Press Here, Mix It Up! Let's Play! and many more metabooks by him and by his fellow artists. (See reviews here).

Shake It Up! Let's Play! by Herve' Tullet

HEY, THERE! I'M GETTING A LITTLE BORED IN HERE.

WANNA PLAY?

Let's Roll! is the invitation from a playful yellow circle who invites young readers to rock and roll with him through the pages.

NOW, OKAY, TRY THE CORNER.

YUP. DOWN THERE ON THE RIGHT!

Rollercoasting, circling and loop-the-looping, Herve' Tullet's latest interactive book, Let's Play! (Chronicle Books, 2016), gives the old imagination a vigorous workout, following the exhortations to follow the bouncing yellow ball with each page turn. Sometimes the yellow disc goes solo, and sometimes he is joined by friends in red and blue. Sometimes he follows the dotted black line, and sometimes he freelances all over the page. Sometimes he hides, and at one point, he is obscured by some strange force which wants to scribble in black marker all over the page. But he rises to the occasion, as promised.

I REALLY DON'T LIKE THIS. . .!

QUICK! TURN THE PAGE!

It's a visual trip for the inventive reader, as kids follow the challenge to see what's next, in this companion book to Tullet's blockbuster hits, Press Here and Mix It Up! (see reviews of Herve's out-of-the-box books here), as this ground-breaking metafiction comes to preschool-primary book lovers. Tullet joins other authors in removing the "fourth-wall" between reader and page with striking, kid-friendly page design, making this new one a worthy member of the recent trio of imaginative pilates-for-the-mind picture books.

WHAT A TRIP!

WANT TO COME BACK AND PLAY SOME MORE?

"Another digital (in the original sense of the term) adventure from the reigning grand master of no-tech gaming," says Kirkus Reviews.

OH! I Have An Idea! by Herve' Tullet

Sometimes It begins with EUREKA!

Sometimes it starts small...

OH!

But what is it, really? You look at it, but it doesn't seem that--unique.

So you keep on LOOKING.


(It can get a bit boring.)

And then, there it is--a full-blown idea--

--in living color.

It's a unique idea. It may come suddenly, but it may need to be refined. An idea is like a seed, and it can spread--far and wide--and you need to cultivate it a bit, before it spreads all over. Why go to all that trouble--just for the novelty of it?

MAYBE TO CHANGE THE WORLD?

Author-illustrator Herve' Tullet, the meta-fiction maven, is back with a brand-new picture book about imagination and inspiration, his latest, I Have an Idea! (Interactive Books for Kids, Preschool Imagination Book, Creativity Books) (Handprint Books, 2019).  Done up in scribbly line and vivid color against bright, white pages, Tullet celebrates the joys of creation, not to mention the fun, as he did in his best-selling
Mix It Up (Interactive Books for Toddlers, Learning Colors for Toddlers, Preschool and Kindergarten Reading Books) and Mix It Up (Interactive Books for Toddlers, Learning Colors for Toddlers, Preschool and Kindergarten Reading Books).

At Your Fingertips: Press Here by Herve' Tullet

READY?

PRESS HERE AND TURN THE PAGE.

At a touch of the forefinger and a flip of the sturdy page, the one yellow dot has become two.

Who could stop now?

Another firm press and the two become three. Then a gentle rub on the one on the left and presto! The yellow dot on the left is now a RED dot. Well done! Now, an equally gentle rub on the yellow dot on the right and...it is now BLUE. Three dots, Red, Yellow, Blue, now await the next command.

Five quick taps on the yellow button brings a new vista: three rows of five dots, one yellow, one red, one yellow. one blue. Perfect!

But wait, there's more. Shake the book and you get a random arrangement over a double-page spread. Tilt the book and the dots slide to the top, to the bottom, and from side to side of the two pages. Wipe the page and the following double page is black.

No problem. Press all the dots and the lights come back on. Clap your hands--not too loud!

WHOO-HOO! KEEP CLAPPING!

Herve Tullet's innovative Press Here (Chronicle Books 2011) has snowballed into a runaway best-seller since its publication earlier this year. A deceptively simple-appearing board book with thick bright pages ornamented with a series of almost round dots which take on a life of their own, proving that flat pages which inspire the imagination can be truly interactive, while achieving a conceptual sophistication which teaches both number sets and color along the way. As recent picture books have shown, the genre is far from dead, taking elements freely from electronic media and going them one better! It's not MAGIC. It's a BOOK!

"Without so much as a single tab to pull or flap to turn, this might be the most interactive picture book of the year," said Booklist in its review.

For a glimpse of the magic, see the book's trailer here.

Say WHAT? Say Zoop! by Herve Tullet

PUT YOUR FINGER ON THE LITTLE DOT AND SAY A LITTLE Oh!

So, what do you think will happen when you put your finger on the big dot and say a big OH?

That dot gets bigger and bigger the louder you say it, until it's really really big...

OH!

And if you want to count big ohs, you have to press the dot REALLY hard!

TRY HOPPING.

YES! WITH YOUR FINGERS!

Artist-cum-author Herve' Tullet, inventor of interactive picture books such as Press Here and Mix It Up! has a new wrinkle, sound, in his Say Zoop! (Chronicle, 2017) as youngsters get to whoop it up a bit, even using their "best robot voices," as they tickle the illustrations and activate their own tickleboxes in this clever metabook which makes toymakers out of books, words, and kids. Promises Publishers Weekly, "... noises and frantic activity proliferate, and the pages grow more beautiful as well, with a Mondrian-like palette of basic primaries."

Shakeup? Shakedown? Abner and Ian Get Right-Side Up by Dave Eggers

The curtain has gone up...

and so have the actors, apparently. Abner and Ian are sideways, perpendicular to the earth, itself a vague silhouette on the backdrop.

"Uh-oh."

"What?"

"Can't you see? We're sideways!"

Yes, Dear Reader, it's happened again. You have opened a meta-book, one of those interactive volumes where the characters expect you to do all of the work.

"We can ask that kid," suggests Abner.

"Hey, Kid! Do us a favor. Shake the book, then turn the page!"

Well, they're not stuck on the side of the page anymore. Now they are suspended from the top.

Ian is dubious about the efficacy of under-aged plot movers, but he's getting too woozy to argue.

Luckily, Abner is an experienced reader. He's cites that story where the author tells you to shake the book, and when you do everything is fixed. Ian says he's familiar with the genre, and after some banter, the two manage to cooperate on the cue.

NOW!

Nope! The Kid cooperates, but each shake seems to make things worse. Abner and Ian find themselves joined at the hip in the book's center seam. How do they get out of the gutter? More shakes find them disambiguated and discombobulated. It's time to try something different.

"Kid? Can you turn out the light and count to ten? We'll meet you on page 76."

And finally, Abner and Ian, feet planted on terra firma, should be ready to start the story, in Dave Eggers' latest theater of the absurd picture book, Abner and Ian Get Right-Side Up (Little, Brown and Company, 2019). But will they? Now Abner and Ian need a nap! All they need is for someone to close the book and make it be nice and dark in there. The End.

In this latest, a sort of spoof of Herve' Tullet's graphic metabooks such as Press Here Game and Mix It Up (Interactive Books for Toddlers, Learning Colors for Toddlers, Preschool and Kindergarten Reading Books) and Bill Cotter's Don't Push the Button! and sequels, artist Laura Park lets the illustrations tell the meta-story with some charm and wry humor. This one is a fun read-aloud for grown-ups (who will appreciate some sophisticated asides planted for them by the author) and especially for youngsters who cut their literary teeth on Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggy early reader series. Says Booklist, "A mind changer for anyone who every thought reading was a sedate occupation!"

Not Quite Ready for Prime Time?: Help! We Need A Title! by Herve' Tullett

HEY!  SOMEONE IS WATCHING US!

COME HERE.

LOOK AT THIS. THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE AND THEY HAVE OPENED OUR BOOK!

It's not really even a book. To be generous, we might call it a collection of preliminary sketches, a hastily crayoned pink pig, a scraggly sorceress-princess, a one-eyed giant green worm bordering on the bizarre, and a stick-man which looks as if it was drawn by a four-year-old on a bad day, all surrounded by random squiggle-doodles in different colors!

But the princess and pig playing together inside are proprietary about their pages and don't quite know what to make of  the peeping Tom people peering at them. But these would-be "readers" seem innocuous enough, if a bit intrusive.

"WHO ARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

The interlopers seem sweet, but they have caught Pig and Princess quite by surprise.

"I THINK THEY WOULD LIKE A STORY."

But...

"WE'RE NOT QUITE READY YET!"

Giant Green Worm suggests adding a backdrop to the page, and Stick-man, who has wandered into the scene from page right, conjures up a bland tropical beach scene that looks like a cheap 1920s postcard. It doesn't help much. How about a monster? A red crayoned monster with fangs appears. He's not very scary. And he has no idea what he's supposed to do. Princess laments:

"WE'RE BORING, AREN'T WE?"

What they need, the characters decide, is someone to organize these pages--AN AUTHOR! And they actually know one!

In the follow-up to his best-selling, groundbreaking hit, Press Here,  Herve' Tullett's newest, Help! We Need a Title! (Candlewick Press, 2014) takes the metafiction picture book to a whole new level. Author-illustrator Tullett is summoned from behind his studio door, appearing in comic snapshots pasted on a hastily-drawn body, protesting that he's barely started work on this book. After listening impatiently to the protests, he throws a crumb to the visiting "readers," a hackneyed paste-up in which a kind fairy vanquishes a evil monster. Even his characters pronounce it, at best, only so-so. Tullet-head loses his patience.

LOOK! IF YOU'RE NOT HAPPY, GO LOOK FOR A STORY SOMEWHERE ELSE. THERE ARE LOTS OF BOOKS...!

Of course, Tullett's "readers" aren't going anywhere in this joyous fourth-wall-fracturing spoof of the interaction between books, authors, characters, and their "dear readers." Tullett again turns the whole author-reader relationship inside out and upside down as he invites kids to interact with his story, encouraging them to "Press This Button" and turn off the lights on the whole fiasco. In the dark, the characters, only their eyes visible, beg the readers to turn the lights back on, but, that done, find themselves still without a premise or plot to go on. But as they grow anxious, Stick-man notices a way out of this altogether awkward situation--there are only a few pages left! With a little luck, they can fill them out with a l-o-o-n-g Goodbye! CIAO!

Herve' Tullett and a growing group of other author-illustrators have taken on the challenge of interactive computer games for kids and shown that there is plenty of life left in the old picture book format yet. He captures the kidlike joy of filling the page with untidy, unconventional open-ended possibilities with eye-and mind-opening potential. For some other promising ventures into to the meta-book for preschool and primary students, begin with Mo Willems' We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) and Barney Saltzberg's Beautiful Oops!

From there, well..."There are lots of books...."

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.

I Can't Believe It Ate the Whole Thing! This Book Just Ate My Dog by Richard Byrne

BELLA WAS TAKING HER DOG FOR A STROLL ACROSS THE PAGE.

SOMETHING VERY ODD HAPPENED.

Indeed! The front end of Bella's enormous shaggy dog disappears right into the book's gutter. A surprised Bella is left holding a taut leash, watching his hindquarters also vanish.

Just then Her friend Ben comes along, with a "What's up?"

"THIS BOOK JUST ATE MY DOG!" BELLA SAYS.

Bravely, Ben plunges into the book's gutter and vanishes, too!

But help is on the way. The Dog Rescue Truck speeds in the breech and... disappears inside the book's greedy gutter, too, quickly followed by a police car, an EMR truck, and a firetruck.

Bella watches the first responders vanish one by one. This is ridiculous!

I'LL JUST HAVE TO SORT THIS OUT MYSELF," SAYS BELLA.

Bella heads into the gutter resolutely, and for a moment all is quiet. Then from inside, a note sails out of the book and lands on the sidewalk.

Dear Reader,

It would be lovely if you could kindly help us. PLEASE turn this Book on its side and SHAKE...

--Bella

And with a page turn and a bookish BURP, the vanished Ben, rescue vehicles, and even Bella's dog are, er, re-issued from the book and rearrange themselves, with a few oddities, in front of Bella, in Richard Byrne's new tale, This book just ate my dog! (Henry Holt, 2014). Using some of the interactive techniques pioneered recently by Herve' Tullet's bestsellers, Press Here and Mix It Up! and even Mo Willems' We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book), in April Fool's Day style Byrne likewise does away with the "fourth wall" and invites the reader into the story, if not to be a visible character, to be a mover and and shaker in the plot! Byrne's illustrations of the primly turned-out Bella and her improbably humongous dog are drawn as deceptively conventional cartoon characters, but his story invites young readers right into story as invisible hands. Kids will find this a book they have to share immediately with someone else just to let them in on the joke.

Read this one with B. J. Novak's equally iconoclastic (biblioclastic?) best-seller, The Book with No Pictures for some mind-stretching experiences with just what can happen within the covers of the modern picture book when author decide to shake things up.

DO NOT DISTURB! Duck's Vacation by Gilad Soffer

"HOW RELAXING.

JUST ME AND THE SEA.

THE PERFECT VACATION."

Duck's got it done in the sun in the South Seas (Bora Bora, if you can read the passport stamp on the cover). He's got the comfy canvas folding chair. He's got the tall tropical drink with the little fruited umbrella. He's got an ice cream cone in his hand. He's got sun glasses and a big red and yellow beach--

"WHOA! "WHO TURNED THE PAGE?"

Somebody must've. His sun glasses and ice cream cone are in the sand and...

"OH. IT'S YOU."

Duck's beady eyes are on the reader, that reckless page turner who--

With the riffle of a page the fantasy fourth wall that keeps the reader out of the book comes down. Duck tries to regain control of his vacation.

"DO. NOT. TURN. ANY. MORE. PAGES."

But the cat is out of the metafictional bag by now. In short order, the crab on the beach attacks Duck's foot, a seagull makes an, er, deposit on his head, two paddle ball players use Duck for a net, and a mob of blubbery beachgoers descend to his piece of sand to have a gab session all around poor Duck.

FINE! TURN THE PAGE.

IT CAN'T POSSIBLY GET WORSE.

But Duck misses the warning signs. Dark clouds are gathering and even an octopus in the shallows opens his umbrella. A freakish snow covers the sand and penguins waddle out of the water. But one more page turn brings back the sunny scene of sandy beach and blue seas with a tall sailing ship offshore. Duck relaxes.

"I COULD STAY ON THIS PAGE FOREVER."

Or not. A longboat full of pirates rows to shore from the ship, promptly plop Duck into a stew pot, and prepare to dine on duck soup. Duck regrets his previous statement.

"THIS WOULD BE THE PERFECT TIME TO TURN THE PAGE." HE WHISPERS.

Gilad Soffer's jolly Duck's Vacation (Feiwel and Friends, 2015) adds one more infectiously witty metabook to the growing number of authors who think outside the book. Not since Mo Willems' We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) and Herve Tullet's Press Here have readers been invited into the metafictional merriment with more elan, almost hearing Donald Duck's voice sputtering out Duck's orders. Soffer's comic illustrations are spot on, and kids will love the surprise ending in which the privateers, all ready to rock and roll in the perfect place for piracy, are foiled by those most deadly of words on the next page:

THE END.

Eye Candy! Bear Sees Colors by Karma Wilson

MOUSE AND BEAR ARE WALKING.
CHITTER-CHATTER TALKING.
SO MUCH FOR THEM TO DO,
AND BEAR SEES... BLUE!

Out strolling with his trusty sidekick, Mouse, Bear suddenly becomes aware of

BLUE DRAGONFLIES, BLUEBERRIES...
BLUE EVERYWHERE!

Bear has as epiphany! Once he starts thinking about blue, he suddenly sees it everywhere, But then....

Hare howdy-doos them from down the trail and points out something ahead.... RED.

Ooh! Right away Bear sees red raspberries on the bush.

Down by the pond Badger bops by in red overshoes, just as Bear sees... YELLOW bees!

And suddenly there are yellow things all around. Wow.

But Mole has a different view down by stream. He spots GREEN.

Before the woodland stroll is done, all of Bear's friends get into the fun. The picnicking Wren, Raven, and Owl are just sitting down, when Bear sees something yummy and BROWN!

The well-browned cookies are passed around, and a good time is had by all in Karma Wilson's first concept book starring her beloved Bear, Bear Sees Colors (The Bear Books) (Margaret K. Elderry Books, 2014). As an introductory colors book for the nursery school set, as a review for older youngsters, or even as an easy reader, Wilson's rhythm and rhyme put kids through their paces, while Jane Chapman's familiar illustrations are just as charming as ever for fans of Wilson's best-selling Bear series, which began with Bear Snores On (The Bear Books) in 2002.

For a fascinating follow up, add Herve' Tullet's delightful new hit, Mix It Up! (see recent review here) to the color mashup to take the color session to a new level.