This Is Not A Book – Book Review

We love books, and while they don’t rock the blogging world, they’re great fun for the kids and they keep our house overflowing with books shelves stocked. The most recent book in our collection is being released for sale today, and it’s called This Is Not A Book.

It really isn’t, by the definition of a book. I mean, it doesn’t have a story, or words, for that matter, but it has pages and it’s bound on one side, so you know… it is a book.

Anyway.

This Is Not A Book is probably the most unique book concept I’ve seen in a while. It has 32-pages but each image is a double page spread. There’s a picture of a monster, a piano, a laptop, butterfly, fridge, tent and so on, but the nature of it lends itself to interaction. It turns the book into a toy, which is rather awesome.

For example, give the children the book, and they immediately start tapping on the ‘laptop’ page, ‘working like Mommy!’.

Turn a few pages to the piano, and they’re banging out a tune. The butterfly went flitting around the room, the monster almost ate Aviya up in one huge gulp, the fridge turned into an (online!) restaurant order. My favourite page is the tent. Turn the book into a triangle shape, and you’re inside a tent.

I think that’s what “author” (illustrator? is it an author for a book with no words?) Jean Jullien was going for. He says about the book, “This Is Not A Book is a toy with many pages! Playfulness is something that I hold very dear as it encourages us to experiment and challenge our surroundings. This Is Not A Book is an invitation to do just that”

It so is that!

There’s just one thing about the book that bothers me. The tightrope walker. If you’re looking down on a tightrope walker, you’re not going to see the clouds. If you’re looking up at him, he’s not going to be hanging upside down. See?

But the children love this book. It’s meant to be for 2 – 4 year olds, but even my 6 year old is crazy about it.

This Is Not A Book is available today for £6.95 on Amazon.