31 May 2017 SAY ZOOP! by Hervé Tullet, Chronicle, August 2017, 64p., ISBN: 978-1-4521-6473-1

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

You don’t have to go, oh, oh, oh, oh”

-- Led Zepplin, “D’yer Maker” (1973)

“Wait a minute! What am I hearing? Gentleman, follow me. Say, ‘ice cream.’”

“Ice cream. But I don’t sing it if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“All right, all right, talk then. But down here.”

“Ice cream.”

“Talk slow.”

“Ice cream.”

“You see? Singing is only sustained talking. Now you.”

“Ice cream.”

“Now you. Right here.”

“Ice cream.”

“Now you, sir.”

“Ice cream.”

“I didn’t know we could do that.”

-- Professor Harold Hill and the River City School Board in The Music Man

“READY FOR THE NEXT STEP? OK. LIFT YOUR FINGER. TAKE IN A DEEP, DEEP BREATH…

AND THEN LET OUT THE LONGEST OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH! IN THE WHOLE WORLD!

HOW ABOUT TAKING A DIVE?

ON THREE...TWO...ONE...GO!

OH! OH! OH! OH! OH! OH! OH! OH! OH!

TERRIFIC!”

Hervé Tullet’s PRESS HERE (Chronicle, 2011) is an exceptionally imaginative, interactive picture book. Tullet has since expanded on his original concept for PRESS HERE to create more new-fangled,old-school, interactive books. After writing about PRESS HERE, I didn’t really have more to say about them. Until now.

While sticking with his now-well-known illustrative style of primary-color dots on a white background, SAY ZOOP! goes in a whole new direction. It’s a must-have book for elementary school music teachers to share with their first and second graders.

The book begins by instructing the reader/audience to put their finger on a dot and say OH! Then, we move on to making little OHs and big OHs and then to following patterns of alternating big and little OHs.  We make bigger and bigger OHs. We count in OHs. We verbally hop in OHs. We cry in OHs.

Then comes a second sound: AH! Now, we can split an audience into two groups, the OHs and the AHs. After some exercises involving interacting OHs and AHs, we add animal noise ROOOOHs and RAAAAHs. Then we add WAAHOO! and other new sounds like ZOOP.. And the expanding goes on.

I can easily see teachers encouraging their kids to sing songs they know, substituting the OHs and AHs for the real lyrics. Singing rounds of OHs and AHs. Composing their own OH and AH tunes.  Raising their hand and asking in OHs and AHs to go to the bathroom.

SAY ZOOP! is an AH of OHs that you don’t want to miss.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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