I was instantly captivated by Hervé Tullet's 2011 best-selling Press Here, with it's "interactive" pages that remind us you don't need a screen to engage a child. Now he's back with a wonderful follow-up in Mix It Up! which is similarly playful and engaging, only this time with a focus on painting and color mixing.
Each page beckons the reader to do something simple--tap a fingerprint, press down a hand and count to five, "mix" two dabs of colored paint together--and the next page shows the results with charming messages of encouragement. What's particularly clever is the way he asks you to close the book together at times, and, for example, with a blob of red on one page and yellow on the other, the next page yields two pools of imperfectly orange circles of oil paint, Rorschack style.
If you're a sneaky enough parent (or your kid is young enough) you can even flip the book open to the next page, and watch as your child tries to figure out how he made that happen.
Aside for the total fun of seeing what comes next when you tilt a page or rub some white into colored dabs of paint, it's particularly great for teaching kids which colors make which, and what happens when you blend them together. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets your own kid asking to put down the book and pull out some paints.
It's a perfect book for pre-readers and early readers; and while I would have thought my chapter book reading seven-year-old was too old for it, she describes it as "very cool." As far as I'm concerned, that's the only endorsement I need.
Find Mix It Up! by Hervé Tullet at your local indie bookstore or from our affiliate, Amazon
