Last week the Nosy Crow Reading Group met to discuss three innovative picture books: Open Very Carefully, by Nicola O’Byrne with words by Nick Bromley, Press Here by Herve Tullet, and It’s a Book by Lane Smith.
A full round-up of the evening will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, I wanted to share one of the lovely, creative projects that has sprung from the group.
A teacher (and the author of this guest blog) at our neighbour, Charles Dickens Primary School, shared our chosen books with her year two class, and one student, Elizabeth (pictured above with Oliver) was so inspired that she decided to make her own version of Press Here… with a bit of a twist ending. Here (with many apologies for the terrible quality of the photographs) is Elizabeth’s story (press the arrows to scroll through the story):
If the blurriness of the photographs makes it difficult to read, Elizabeth’s Press Here (which builds upon the existing structure of Herve’s original Press Here with the inspired introduction of a character-building element) ends with (SPOILER ALERT) a crocodile entering the story…and eating its way through the pages! Does that sound familiar…?
I was VERY lucky to have Elizabeth read me the story herself and hearing it was a true joy – it shows such imagination and creativity, and the mash-up of Press Here and Open Very Carefully is, I think, very in keeping with the “books about books” theme around which our chosen titles were grouped. So thank you, Elizabeth and Oliver, for sharing your story with me!
I you’ve not seen Open Very Carefully before, here’s a look inside:
And here’s a trailer for Press Here:
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