The review
Foolet calls this the "dot dot book" and he's not wrong. This book is dotty about dots, and you'd be hard-pressed (sorry pun fully intended) to find an even more engaging book about dots!
You start the book by pressing the yellow dot on the cover, and each new page uncovers another set of instructions where one dot leads to many dots, different coloured dots, and dots big and small. The reader is instructed to press, tap and rub the dots, as well as shaking, tilting, blowing the book, and more.
Usually you'd expect books to rely on tactile engagement, pop-ups or flaps, while this book is as flat as paper, it drives its interactivity by utilising the magical power of instructions and also the notion of causality. It operates with the assumption of cause-and-effect; press this dot and two dots appear, clap your hands and the dots will grow. It's an intriguing way to introduce this subconsciously to toddlers, and perhaps that is part of the magic!
The paradox of fiction can be described as people being moved by fictional characters, events or scenarios despite knowing they are fictional and not real. For Press Here, we press, tilt, shake, or clap at the book, with the awareness that we are not actually making anything really happen. The suspension of disbelief is present, and it was fascinating for me to observe how quickly foolet got into it.
In the era of touchscreens and screen time, this book brings a certain level of awareness. I'm astounded to see how intuitively children respond to touchscreens and Press Here bridges the digital and physical experience. This book reads like an ebook, but preserves the joy of page-turning and the physical experience of reading a book. Shall we read it one more time?