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 Mopping," 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.

Blop comes in many colors, but only one distinctive, easy-to-draw shape. The latest in a series of offbeat, imaginative creations by renowned French artist Tullet will intrigue children and encourage them to think outside the blop.

Tullet takes a single shape, a puffy X reminiscent of a butterfly or a flower, and allows it to run wild through a colorful circus of abstract ideas. Using very few words and a homely, handwritten script, Blop visually explores many concepts encountered for the first time by young children, including up and down, single and plural, colors, individual and family, school and classroom, pleasure and pain, beauty, the art museum, city and countryside, the universe. One spread asks questions to which there are no right or wrong answers: “What do Blops eat?" “Would you like to have a Blop?” “Can Blops fly?” Any child bored with standard activity-book fare will love using this open-ended, imaginative tool for creating their own universe. “Moi C’est Blop” (the original French title) taps directly into the heart of a child’s natural creativity by avoiding the didactic explanatory tone of similar books.

Lighthearted, fun and original, this book will delight children and parents alike. (Picture book. 2-6)