Press Here by Herve Tullet

Hey, Story Seekers!

I pressed the yellow dot.

Then the book told me to press it again.

Then it told me to rub things, shake things, tilt things, clap, tap, and generally behave in ways that would make a librarian nervous if I tried them with every book in the building.

I approve.

Press Here is written and illustrated by Hervé Tullet, and it pulls off a wonderful trick.

Nothing in this book actually moves.

Nothing lights up.

There are no flaps, buttons, batteries, speakers, pop-ups, or tiny computer chips hiding in the binding.

Just dots.

And somehow the dots listen to you.

If you're new to Book Explorers, I'm Jungle Jimmy the Book Explorer, children's author, dad, and longtime performer for kids. Readit the Book Worm is my childlike expedition partner, and this may be the easiest book we've ever reviewed for getting him to follow directions.

Apparently I just needed more colored dots.

Book Breakdown

Press Here starts with a yellow dot on a white page.

The book tells you to press it.

Turn the page.

Now there are two dots.

Well.

That's interesting.

Press again.

More dots.

Soon you're tapping them, rubbing them, shaking the book, tilting it, following one simple instruction after another.

And every time you turn the page, the dots appear to have reacted to whatever you just did.

Tilt the book and they slide.

Shake it and everything scrambles.

Do something to the dots and the next page makes it look as though your finger caused it.

Of course it didn't.

We know that.

The five-year-old knows that.

Probably.

But that isn't the point. Tullet gets you to agree to the game.

That's the trick.

Visually he gives himself almost nothing to work with. Red, yellow and blue painted dots. White pages. Black pages. Simple handwritten-looking instructions.

Then he uses position, size, number and color to make those dots feel alive.

There's no character marching through a plot.

You are the character.

Your hands move the story forward, which is a genuinely different kind of picture book.

Chronicle published the 56-page English edition in 2011 and calls it the longest-running picture book on the New York Times bestseller list. It took starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal and Shelf Awareness, and it was a 2012 ALA Notable Children's Book.

For teachers and librarians: Ages 3 to 5, preschool through grade 2. TeachingBooks reports Lexile 480L and says ATOS is unavailable. Junior Library Guild lists the same number as AD480L. I'm giving you the number and telling you the sources disagree on the AD prefix rather than picking one. On Guided Reading the sources split between I and J, so I'm not publishing one at all.

Jungle Jimmy's Journal

As a performer I love books that understand the audience has hands.

And voices.

And opinions.

And absolutely no intention of sitting there like decorative houseplants.

Press Here puts that energy to work.

A kid isn't waiting for something to happen.

They're causing it.

Or at least that's the deal everybody agrees to.

Press.

Turn.

Whoa.

Shake.

Turn.

Look what happened.

There's a beautiful piece of stage magic hiding in that rhythm, and the secret isn't complicated. The next page was already printed that way.

But Tullet understands that knowing the secret doesn't kill the fun.

Kids play pretend all day while knowing they're pretending.

A cardboard box isn't really a spaceship.

Everybody still needs to get out of the way, because we're launching.

That's what this book understands, and it's why the trick survives a child who's smart enough to see through it.

The page turn is doing the work.

Instruction.

Action.

Turn.

Payoff.

Again.

That's terrific read-aloud timing.

My one real warning is about group size.

With one child, everybody's finger is on the action.

With two or three, you take turns.

With twenty kindergarteners?

Now we have negotiations.

If you're reading it to a class, decide beforehand how you're handling the touching, shaking and tapping. Otherwise the book becomes Twenty Children Attempt to Press One Yellow Dot Simultaneously.

Different book.

Much louder.

Readit's Review

I KNOW the dots aren't really moving.

But they kind of are.

Okay, they're not.

But when you tilt the book and turn the page and all the dots are over on the side, it looks like you did it.

I would shake it harder.

Does that change anything?

Probably not.

I would still try.

Also, what happens if you press the wrong dot?

The book should have a page for that.

And I like when there are tons of dots, because then I want to count them, except I also don't want to count them because there are tons of dots.

Can I press two at once?

I'm doing it.

What Others Think

A lot of people have pressed that yellow dot.

Goodreads has Press Here at 4.42 out of 5 from 25,464 ratings and 2,055 reviews.

That is a serious amount of affection for a book whose cast consists mainly of circles, and it's one of the highest ratings on anything we've reviewed.

Readers keep returning to the interaction. Parents, teachers and librarians describe children tapping, shaking, tilting, laughing, and immediately wanting another turn.

Several also mention the thing I noticed straight away: it works best one-on-one or with a small group, because a child can physically participate. In a bigger group the adult has to work out how everybody gets involved without a small riot forming around the book.

The professional response was unusually strong. Four starred reviews, and Booklist praised how interactive Tullet made an ordinary printed book without adding a single flap or moving part.

That's what people keep coming back to.

It's simple.

Almost suspiciously simple.

Dots on paper.

But once a kid agrees that pressing this dot caused something on the next page, Tullet has them.

Belly Laugh Scale

4 out of 5: Big-Time Belly Laughs

This isn't funny the way Dragons Love Tacos or The Book With No Pictures are funny. There's no comic character carrying jokes.

The laughter comes from doing something and watching the book pretend to respond.

Shake it.

Turn the page.

Uh-oh.

Tilt it.

Turn the page.

Look where they went.

The kid becomes part reader, part magician, and part scientist conducting very important experiments on colored circles.

It doesn't quite reach our five-level laugh explosion, and I won't pretend otherwise.

But participation counts for a lot around here, especially when the kid immediately wants to start over.

Final Explorer Verdict

I'd hand Press Here to preschoolers, kindergarteners, early elementary kids, reluctant sit-still listeners, families who want an interactive read-aloud, and teachers who'd rather have kids participating than watching.

There are colors to notice. Directions to follow. Cause and effect to predict. Positions and patterns to track.

But I wouldn't lead with any of that.

I'd open the book.

Point at the yellow dot.

And say: go ahead.

Because the cleverest thing Tullet does is make a child curious about what happens next. Once the finger comes down, the book takes it from there.

It sits at number one on our list of the best interactive picture books, and if your kid takes to it, Tap the Magic Tree runs the same engine through a whole year of seasons. The New York Times made that exact comparison, and they were right.

Readit would now like to know whether shaking this review rearranges the paragraphs.

Please don't encourage him.

Keep exploring, Story Seekers!

Jungle Jimmy & Readit