Reading material is brain food for children. Chapter books are the healthy carbs. Narrative non-fiction is the meat. Informational texts are the veggies, and graphic novels are dessert. In this healthy reading diet, novelty books are the bag of gummy bears your grandpa slips you when your nobody’s looking.
Known in the library world as Toy/Moveable books, these literary confections break the rules of standard book format in every way imaginable. Forget multiple pages layered between two covers, read (in the West) from right to left, front to back, sequentially. These books have built in features, usually physical, that break the tidy-pages-between-two-covers format.
The definition of novelty is something new, unexpected, and surprising. In novelty books, anything goes. The only constant is charm and delight.
Here are some of the most recognizable novelty styles, with an example or two of each. (ISBNs are included if you would like to look them up.)
Touch-and-Feel / Tactile Books
Board books with fabrics and different textures glued on, for very young children. Little or no narrative is needed.
Lift the flap
The most basic style of novelty books, with physical flaps that lift up to reveal a hidden part of the illustration. Often marketed for babies and toddlers. Examples abound, but let’s go with the Spot books as a wonderful exemplar.
· Where’s Spot! By Eric Hill ISBN 978-0-3992-4046-1
Pop-Up books
Pop-Up books are marvels of paper engineering with complex figures that go from flat to three dimensional as the cover opens or at page turns. Often there are pull tabs that create an animation. Robert Sabuda has designed a shelf-full of these treasures, many fairy tales, classic children’s books, and a non-fiction series with author Matthew Reinhart. (The one below was new to me and I intend to order it for the library tomorrow.)
· Ten Horse Farm by Robert Sabuda ISBN 978-0-7636-6398-8
See-through Books
See-through books have holes in the page that reveal a part of the illustration on the following page or all the way to the last page of the book. One well-trodden trope is a book where a parent or grandparent glues a picture of the child on the inside back cover, so the hole makes the child’s face appear on every page. Others, like Allan Ahlberg’s Peek-a-Boo, hint at the action on the following page.
· Peek-a-Boo by Janet and Allan Ahlberg ISBN 978-0-6708-7192-6
Altered Books
Back in the 1920s, a manic artist named Peter Newell wrote and illustrated some delightfully subversive children’s books. In The Rocket Book, a hole drilled through the pages shows the path of a bottle rocket blasting its way from the basement of an apartment building up through many floors and the mayhem it creates on its way to the roof. The Hole Book is similar, but follows a stray bullet through many walls and misadventures.
· The Rocket Book by Peter Newell ISBN 978-0-8048-0505-6
· The Hole Book by Peter Newell ISBN 978-0-8048-1498-0
More recently, John Scieszka and friends created Battle Bunny in a standard book format, but the illustrations make it seem that a kid has taken a sweet little book about a Birthday Bunny and used a marker to change the story. The two stories overlap in a comical and (dare I say) novel way.
· Battle Bunny by John Scieszka, Mac Barnett, et al. ISBN 978-1-4424-4673-1
Transparent/Projectable books
Projectable books are printed on plastic or acetate, and are meant to be read in a darkened room. The reader shines a flashlight through the page and an image is projected onto a ceiling or wall.
Whoo’s There: a bedtime shadow book by Heather and Martha Zschock ISBN 978-1-5935-9904-1
Toy books
Toy books are books that can be played with as toys. Some have wheels and can be zoomed along the floor. Carousel and House books stand up on their own when the front and back covers are attached together with laces or magnets, and the made to look like a dollhouse or other building.
Way back in the 18th century, children just learning to read used hornbooks, and some enterprising publisher realized the paddle-like books could be made slightly bigger to be used as a racket in a badminton-like game (presumably when the teacher was busy elsewhere)!
· DK Wheelie Books: Tractor ISBN 978-0-7894-4307-6
· A Victorian Dollhouse by Maggie Bateson ISBN 978-0-3120-6228-6
· 18th century Battledores (if interested, you may start down this antiquarian rabbit-hole by searching for Hornbooks on the internet. You’re on your own!)
Shape Books
Shape books were popular in the late 1800s. The covers and pages were die-cut in the shape of animals or toys, but the stories inside could just have easily been printed in a standard format.
Only a Doll https://maxwell.bridgew.edu/exhibits/shape/only.html
The shape had no influence on how the story unfolded. Unlike…
… Peter Newell again! The Slant Book, has a skewed cover that creates a big “V” when opened. The story involves a baby in a baby-buggy, and the odd cover shape gives the illusion that the buggy is careening downhill.
· The Slant Book by Peter Newell ISBN 0-8048-0532-0
Interactive books
These books are novel because of the way the reader interacts with them. The Choose Your Own series requires the reader to make decisions about what should happen next in the story. This results in the one book being able to be read a different way each time through. I have heard them described as a maze book. (And I suppose books with actual mazes, and seek-and-find books could land here, as well.)
Press Here by Tullet asks little readers to push, shake, and clap to make things happen on the next page. Minimalist and extremely low-tech, this book is a marvel. [If you are ever full of ennui or down in the dumps, search out Herve Tullet on YouTube and watch him marshal a whole bunch of little kids in a giant art project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xCcKk_wNUE ]
Pat the Bunny could be shelved here, or back with the Touch-and-Feel books.
· Choose Your Own Adventure series
· Press Here Herve Tullet ISBN 978-0-8118-7954-5
· Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt ISBN 978-0-3071-2000-7
Books With Accessories
Some books come with little extras that are necessary to tell the story. In There’s a Mouse About the House the reader manipulates a little cardboard mouse (with string tail) through holes in the pages to find a snack while avoiding the cat.
The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg follows a postman around fairytale country as he delivers letters. Tiny envelopes contain letters from the characters that add a second layer of story to the book.
· There’s a Mouse About the House by Richard Fowler ISBN 978-0881101546
· The Jolly Postman by Janet & Allan Ahlberg ISBN 978-0-3161-2644-1
Bath books/cloth books
Waterproof and/or chewable, these books seldom have more than six pages.
Books with Sound
These books, with buttons to push as a kind of aural rebus, are the bane of my existence. Every once in a while (usually by mistake) one of these noisy books makes it on the shelf at the library and hoots/moos/clankity-clanks/wee-oh-wee-oh-wee-ohs until the battery wears out. It is an excellent gift choice for the child of a frenemy.
But wait! There’s More! This is not an exhaustive list of all the kinds of books that could be considered novelties. There are some novelty books that defy categorization. Sam’s Sandwich by David Pelham comes to mind. (ISBN 978-0-7636-7808-1) Is it a shape book? Toy book? Lift the flap book? Where do we put The Little Fur Family by Margaret Brown (ISBN 978-0-0607-5960-5)?
(Actually, I can answer that question. We should put The Little Fur Family into the hands of every four-year-old on the planet.)
Are you intrigued? Has this sparked some ideas for books you would like to make?
Here is some real world advice from author Salina Yoon, in response to a question about writing novelty books. (If you aren’t familiar with Salina Yoon’s books, stop reading and run to a library or bookstore. Go. Right. Now. Finish reading this later.)
“Did someone say NOVELTY??? I’ve been alerted… and snuck out of my work cave to answer this question.
…I am an author/illustrator/designer of novelty books…and I can assure you that a novelty market exists. But I can also tell you that publishers rarely acquire novelty-text only, unless you are a bestselling, well-known author. (I am not one of these… so I’ve never sold text-only to anyone!)
When I submit novelties, the entire package is created. In fact, I hand-build a dummy that looks like a finished, printed book so that the publisher can see, touch, and feel how well all three elements work together: the format, the art, and the concept/text.
Most publishers either create novelties in-house OR (more commonly), they are bought from the book packagers who’s already developed the novelties… and publishers simply get to choose from a catalog what they’d like to add to their list. This makes novelty acquisitions even trickier.
This is to say unless you have a complete vision for this book, it would be a very tough sell. Most novelty books are art and format driven… so art and format is KEY in making a decision about a novelty submission. Also, novelties are super expensive to produce,…BUT…they have to keep the retail price low… so the profit margins are much less than a traditional picture book. This means the expectations on a novelty (sales qty wise) is much higher… meaning, … it’s a very tough sell.
Board books are a completely different animal. These are typically board-book editions of previous picture books. Many classic picture books have board book editions. If you see a 24 page board book (or longer), it was mostly likely a picture book first. If you want to go this route,… you must sell your ms first as a picture book. And if it’s age appropriate, it could have a life in board book edition down the line. But typically, a storybook doesn’t go straight to board.
So… my advice is this. If you strongly feel this should be a novelty book, develop it that way! And show it that way. Even if you can’t draw, put together a dummy and include the flaps, and do a rough sketch to show what’s beneath the flaps… to explain the Interactive experience. You can find the imprints that publish novelty simply by looking at published novelties, and see their info. Most major houses require agents.
Best of luck!!!
PS: My experiences are only with the major houses (Scholastic, S&S, Random House, Macmillan, Penguin…) so it may not apply to smaller presses. Perhaps smaller presses or book packagers take novelty ms? I do not know.
Back to my cave…”
[August 17, 2012 03:13 PM SCBWI.org/boards/index.php?topic=64071.0]
And a little bit more…
John Newbery’s Pretty Little Pocket Book (1744) could be considered one of the first novelty books for children. The book itself was straightforward, but came with a ball (if the recipient was a boy) or a pin-cushion (if the recipient was a girl) that was red on one side, black on the other. Pins were meant to be stuck in one side or the other for good and bad deeds. I’m guessing even in the 18th century a child would give an eye-roll on being given this as a gift.
More early novelty books can be explored at the National Library of the Netherlands. Genieten! (Enjoy!)
https://www.kb.nl/en/themes/novelty-books-in-the-childrens-books-collection#:~:text=Novelty%20books%20are%20books%20that,the%20reader%20opens%20the%20book.
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