I Am Blop!

Tullet (Press Here) plays with shapes that look like chubby Xs or butterflies—“blops,” he calls them. On every page, one blop (or several, or dozens) do new things, each with a short, hand-lettered title. The six-page “Story of Yellow and Blue Blops” ends with a transparent page with a blue blop printed on it; placed over a yellow blop, they create green. But that’s only the beginning. A foil page on a spread mirrors a blop at right (“Blop discovers,” written backwards, is legible on the foil). Blops are decorated like works of art, gnawed on, scribbled on, and even forbidden (“No blopping,” reads one page, with a red bar across a blop). Perforated punch-out blops are included at the end, and a questionnaire (“What do blops eat?”) concludes this parade of blop events and transformations. Since the blops themselves are not characters, it’s the sheer volume of variations Tullet dreams up that gives the work its energy. And as a hat-tip to the book’s endless search for innovation, even the format is a novelty—it’s a stylish, irregularly-shaped polygon. Ages 3–up. (Mar.)