Movable books have a long and storied publishing history – as I discovered last year at an exhibition organised by Gill Partington, whose research at Cambridge’s University Library allowed her to ‘roam the library and play with funny-shaped books’. Cambridge’s collection includes a copy of The Speaking Picturebook, first published in 1880, whose hidden wooden bellows still produce the sounds of farmyard animals when pulled 140 years later!
John Newbery founded children’s publishing as we know it today in 1744 with A Pretty Little Pocket-Book, which came with pincushions for girls and balls for boys. With this rich history and the research of scholars like Dr Partington, who unearth and celebrate surviving copies of these curious forerunners, we can see how fun, novelty and interactivity have long been central to children’s publishing. The descendants of these early books continue to offer early years educators and young readers opportunities for rich reading and learning experiences today.
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