Press Here

I was wandering down State Street in Los Altos last week (mostly because there’s a diner there called Rick’s Cafe). Part of the street is closed at the moment, which the city seems to have taken as a cue to turn it into a playground with fake grass and toys and chalk for drawing on the pavements. It’s awesome.

It’s also the home of Linden Books, which is a brilliant bookstore filled with couches and puppets and games and feels more like a friendly kindergarten with an awful lot of books than a store. So naturally I felt right at home.

And I stumbled across this brilliant book. Press Here by Hervé Tullet.

I flipped open the front page:

So I did. Of course, I did. Then I turned the page.

It asked me to rub the dot on the left. Gently.

It asked me to tape the yellow dot. Then the red. Then the blue.

This continued, with certain variations, until we came to a page that read:

And did I do it? Yes, I did. I wanted to know what happened next.

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I’m not going to spoil it for you. You should read it. Be carried away by the relentless, fast-paced action adventure.* And if you want to go nuts you can buy the app it inspired.**

 

* May be more of a risk for the under 4’s.

** Yes, the book came first.