Book Review #1: Press Here by Herve Tullet

By: Melissa Weir-Pina

The book I chose to review is Press Here by Herve Tullet, a book for 2-5 year-olds. The book has a fairly simple story- at the start of the book you have a single yellow dot, and as you go through the story, you are told to tap or rub the dot and shake or tilt the book. At each flip of a page, something about the dot will change, it could get bigger, it can change colour, or it can multiply. The book teaches young kids to follow instructions, it also teaches kids about sizes and colours.  

The concept of Press Here is following simple instructions, and having the young child reading the book interact with it. It’s a simple concept but it’s a good one for children to learn from an early age, because throughout life there will always be instructions or rules or laws to follow, whether it be rules set by a parent, instructions for an assignment you were given at school, or laws made by the government. The book has other concepts as well, colours for one, sometimes the reader is told to ‘tap the red dot’ so the child will have to tap that specific dot. The final concept the book has is about sizes, sometimes the reader will be told to tap a dot to make it bigger or smaller.  

The illustrations in the book are very simple- dots, at the start of the book you have one single yellow dot, and as you read to book you gain dots, you make them change size, or you can make them change colour. It doesn’t sound like the illustrations are anything special, but the colours they use for the dots are very bright, and the dots look like they’ve been painted on. The illustrations are very simple but the dots do pop out nicely against the white background in the book, making them noticeable enough the young kids will be intrigued by illustrations. 

Out of all the emergent literacy skills, I think the one that this book covers is print motivation. I think that this book encourages children to enjoy reading and to be interested in the book because this book encourages interacting with the book on every page, making it less likely that the young reader will lose interest in the book. I think this book also covers print awareness, each page has a different set of instructions on it for the young reader to follow, and the child will learn to recognize what each action in the book means, for example, when the child is told to tap something, they will know what to do immediately.  

In conclusion, I think that Press Here is a very enjoyable book for both young children and for adults. The book being very interactive means that there less chances that the child will lose interest in the book quickly, the illustrations really pop out at you and the book is an overall fun book to share with your kids. It’s a book with a simple and fun concept that encourages kids to play around with the book. It’s a book that never gets boring and one that can be read repeatedly without becoming a headache.