Help! We Need a Title!

by Hervé Tullet

Someone has been opening this book... I think they’re looking for a story! The characters are still only sketches, there’s a setting and a few ideas about colour, but who can they turn to for the story? It’s not long until they go after the author and disturb him in the middle of his work...

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Humor, Writing, Storytime, Books About Books, Art

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Hervé Tullet is the creator of more than fifty children’s books, including Press Here, which has been translated into twenty-seven languages. He loves to provoke surprise with his books, as well as in the dynamic workshops that he takes part in. He lives in Paris and is celebrated internationally for his playful, inventive, and interactive storytelling.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually, not just a title the book needs.
Also a story.
And characters that weren't mere sketches.
It would help if the author were in a better mood.

I found this quite amusing but I am a grown up who knows lots of authors and enjoys metafiction.
I have not tested it on any children.

[Alyson (Kid Lit Frenzy)]

I am going to be in the minority with my thoughts on the book but I will share them nonetheless.

This one is a great idea with some wonderful laugh out loud moments that completely falls apart about 1/2 way through the book. I wanted this book to be so much more and sadly it wasn't. There was one part when the characters indicate they are bored and I was thinking the same thing.

I like books that look at the writing process and engage children in the process as well, but this one fails to pull it off in the end. It needs more than a title in my mind.

[Niki · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute idea that doesn't really go anywhere.

[Kaethe · Rating 2 out of 5]

August 10, 2014
Not my favorite among the metafictional books for young children.
May 24, 2016
Still not. Although apparently I loved Press Here so much that I keep picking this one up.


Library copy

[Panda Incognito · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this book is that a bunch of story characters are alarmed to see a reader peeking in on them before their tale is finished. It was a fun concept, and the scribbly illustrations were delightfully reminiscent of childhood, but the story purposefully lacked structure and meaning. Although that is somewhat acceptable as a stylistic decision, one must question the choice for a children's picture book.

As a writer, I thought this picture book was amusing, but it functions poorly as entertainment for children. Even if they can grasp the meta concept without getting confused and annoyed, the story is little more satisfying than having your parent tell you, "Once upon a time there was a little girl named (insert here) who needed to go to bed." Children need stories with basic meaning, structure, and conflict, and this kind of book would be only an irritating run-on of scribbly character dialogue and confusion.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved Press Here and hoped for same feeling. Super funny concept, but don't think it will translate to intended audience.

[Jordan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't let this man near children. Or art supplies.

[Priya · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a cool way to interest the kids and introduce the author Mr. Herve Tullet. Love it love it absolutely love it

[Layla Crowie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amusing book trying to find it's title with the help of a colourful band of creatures, and it's author. A great bed time story for young children, but also really good for inspiring them to create their own stories.

[Gloria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Playful illustrations and storytelling to help children explore such foundational ideas as the role of author, reader, character, and story. Highly recommended!

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This first book is not quite ready to be read yet. In fact, the characters inside are still getting ready. There isn’t really a story, though they are looking for one. And the characters themselves are rough sketches rather than lovely images. In fact, the entire inside of the book is a mess. Perhaps if we found an author? But even that doesn’t help much, especially when the characters are disappointed in the story he creates for them. Yet in the end, it is a book, with a story, some funny moments, and it even manages to tell readers how a book is created and what its elements are.

Quite clever, once you get past the rough illustrations and embrace them as part of the concept. Tullet himself appears in the book, his photographed head and shoulders plunked onto a drawn body. The entire book feel unfinished, but that’s exactly the way it’s supposed to feel. This is a clever way to introduce young children to authors, writing, and how stories are crafted.

[Francis Thibeault · Rating 5 out of 5]

Auteur de l'extraordinaire, Hervé Tullet impressionne encore par sa démarche artistique et par ce rapport interactif qu'il introduit entre le lecteur et son livre. Mais ici, en plus d'utiliser de la peinture et du crayon, l'auteur n'hésite pas aussi à recourir à... la photographie! Et tout cela, pour s'ajouter lui-même dans son livre! C'est un moment de our joie et de rire intense que ce livre. Je le recommanderais même pour exploiter avec les enfants la structure narrative et les divers éléments d'une histoire!

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Age: Preschool-2nd grade

Delightful take on a meta book for kids that introduces them to the creation of a book. Although it could have easily gotten confusing or repetitious, Tullet provides several characters with varying personalities that try to talk their way through making the book more "presentable" for the readers/listeners.

[Beverly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny story within a story. I am not a fan of scribbly, messy, childish artwork, that someone as untalented as I could produce, and this book has it in spades, until the four double-page spreads of the short story which has simple, but not scribbly artwork. The author/illustrator has also included several head-shot photos of himself attached to a drawing of his upper body.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am clearly not the intended audience for this book...and well, it just didn't work for me. I am certain that some children will read it and love it. I didn't like the illustrations and felt the "story" had no real story to it (which I recognize was the whole point)...so I just didn't find anything that really appealed to me personally.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

My son loved “Press Here” and wanted more books by the same author. This one is good in theory, not great in execution. It’s a fun idea that doesn’t really go anywhere. The art is funny, though, and my son was entertained by it once, but it won’t be one we reread.

[Marianna Sharktooth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ο συγγραφέας προσπαθεί να ανακαλύψει μια ιστορία, και μαζί παρασύρει τα παιδιά σε ένα παραμυθο-παιχνίδι. Από εμένα 3 αστέρια, από την ανηψιά μου, η οποία το επέλεξε να το πάρει στις διακοπές της για να το ξαναδιαβασει, σίγουρα 5!

[The Styling Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Help! We Need a Title! by Herve Tullet – Just enjoyed every bit. Not a ‘Press Here’ but hilarious and fantastic approach to writing a book and having your characters speak out.

[Casandria · Rating 4 out of 5]

We catch unformed characters before their book is even ready to be ready!
Books
Imagination

[Jeretta Hall-Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute! I loved the different artwork styles each character had in the story. This would be a great one for a storytime. Definitely encourages creativity!

[Relyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, this book makes me wish I was still in the classroom so I could read this to my students. It's a wonderful mentor text for new writers.

[Phoebe Ledster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tullet is a master of creative, engaging and interactive storytelling! It is clear to see the similarities in his writing style with his other book ‘Press here’ (a personal favourite) and he never fails to provide unique and inventive picture books!

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kirkus Reviews (April 15, 2014)

Clever new metafiction from the prolific French artist (Press Here, 2011, etc.). With a seeming nod to Pirandello's absurdist early-20th-century play Six Characters in Search of an Author, Tullet introduces a literally sketchy cast, utterly discombobulated at having been prematurely discovered. "There are people here... / And they've opened OUR BOOK!" The characters (pink pig, wand-toting fairy, orange dog, green snake, amorphous stick figure and red monster) confer over how best to entertain the "very sweet" readers who've suddenly materialized. First they produce "a bit of background color" (a consciously banal tropical sunset). Concurring that they need a story and, ergo, an author, they remember that they know one! The pack descends upon Tullet. (Wryly, he plays himself, in photographed headshots atop a crayoned blue shirt.) Contrasting with the preceding slapdash, mixed-media tumult, the author's orderly studio (replete with tools of his trade) is rendered in perspective, in thick black line. Pressured by his unruly creations, he supplies a sappy eight-page vignette to get them to clear out. Their negative critique provokes him to order them off (while conspiratorially enlisting readers to "Press HERE, please?" to turn off the desk lamp). The thick, black, paper-over-board cover suggests a sketchbook; in the adeptly controlled chaos within, Tullet outlines the elements of a good story while supplying kids with plenty of inspiration to create their own. (Picture book. 4-8)



Publishers Weekly (March 24, 2014)

With plenty of self-referential good cheer, Tullet (Press Here) makes fun of picture books-and of himself, too. The fourth wall comes down immediately as a hastily scrawled cast of characters-fairy princess, pig, dog, snake, stick figure-look out of the page in faux shock ("Someone's watching us!"). "I think they would like a story," says the pig. They scramble to provide entertainment, holding up a cheesy ocean sunset backdrop, then recruiting a bad guy. "I don't know anything about stories," says the red monster, who's more sweet than scary. "You're going to need someone else... an author!" A door opens to reveal Tullet in his studio, a photo of his aggrieved face pasted onto a scribbled cartoon body. "Sorry," he says, in comic consternation, "but you can't stay here.... This book isn't finished yet!" After creating a hasty story for his characters, the author chases everybody out. Particularly effective is Tullet's use of varying visual vocabularies to signal the frame stories and the narratives inside them, while exuberant splashes and splotches read as the happy embrace of imperfection. Ages 4-8. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.



School Library Journal (May 1, 2014)

Gr 1-3-Tullet breaks the fourth wall in this fantastic book. His characters look readers right in the eye and talk directly to them. A pig and a princess are busy playing when they notice they are being watched; they stop and call for other characters to come and take a look. They're all unpolished scribbles created with various media and mixed in with smudges, smears, doodles, and notes the author has written to himself. The chaos is great fun and gives the appearance of a book in progress. Tullet himself has a cameo, mugging for the camera in a series of entertaining head shots on top of a drawn torso. His cast of characters begs him for a story so readers won't get bored and go away, and he obliges them. But they're less than impressed with his effort. He feigns offense, and in a wonderful reference to his wildly successful Press Here (Chronicle, 2011), he asks readers to push the button on his desk lamp, leaving the characters in the dark, their bewildered eyes glowing. They ask readers to turn the light back on and express their gratitude with sweet farewells. The pig and princess resume their play. Kids will love the messiness of the pages and the casual, witty dialogue. With this book, Tullet adds to his repertoire of interactive creations unparalleled in their cleverness and merriment.-Alyson Low, Fayetteville Public Library, AR (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Do you have an idea for a story or not?
If not, the very sweet people will leave!"

This book was enormously cool.
I'm really impressed with picture books that engage with the reader directly, and There Are Cats In This Book was one my favourite picture books of 2015. So this one really stood out to me, with the direct narrative voice and the illustrations that constantly change (is the pink animal a cow or a pig? At first I thought it was a pig and now I'm not sure any more), and look just like a draft. It's a truly original format. And on top of that, it teaches children about the components that go towards building a story. I don't know how it author packed so much good stuff in there.
Beginning with characters in the early stage of development, they attempt to assemble their own story for the entertainment of the readers. They bring in a setting from outside but realise that this won't hold the readers' attention. "Hmm, we're boring you, aren't we? Sorry!" They recruit a villain, but without an author to supply a plot they know their story is incomplete. "Author: Sorry but you can't stay here. I'm not ready yet. This book isn't finished! Characters: You could at least try!" It's wonderfully organic, playing with different elements of an archetypal children's story in isolation. It never feels like a lesson, but at the same time I feel like my GCSE literature coursework would have been a lot better than it was had I read this book as a child.
Inventive, clever, and effortlessly cool, this is a book that will really appeal to parents. And the drawings are filled with personality too. They're unexpected and engaging in their own right, a female fairy dressed in expressly masculine wizard's garb, a snake with one giant eye at the end, and a wealth of textures changing from page to page.
I would definitely read more by this author - although reading it aloud with Baby Adam is more than half the fun, I don't think I could do it alone.

[Carson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me begin by saying this is a difficult book to review because I am still not entirely sure how I feel about it. Help! We Need A Title! is a story about story characters that were not prepared for you to open up the book, and now are scrambling to put together a story to entertain the reader. The characters are not very successful in putting together the story themselves so they have to enlist the help of Henre Tullet, the author to make a story. Even after the story is told by the author, the characters are not completely satisfied and neither was I as a reader.

The book is the epitome of metafiction. The characters talk about being in a book and the author is a character who writes the book. I'm not sure how well this level of metafiction translates to children. The story was confusing, but even more frustrating was that it did not seem to have a definite ending. It just kind of stopped.

Tullet's illustrations are also very bizarre. They are drawn as if they were created by a four year old. I am not saying this to be mean or put down Tullet. It seems like that was the style he was going for in his book (with the exception of the few pages where Tullet the character decides to illustrate the story within the story). He also uses several photographs of his face with a drawn on body to illustrate himself as a character. I would not recommend this book for children, because of how confusing the concepts of metafiction can be, especially since the picture book is obviously written for very young children who are just learning to read.

[Cierra Garrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personal reaction:
I picked this book up originally because of it’s very different cover art. Although I think this book presents opportunities for learning, it also leaves quite a bit to the imagination and could be slightly confusing at times. The book is written with the characters talking about being in a book and the author being a character that writes try book.. if you think too much into it, it becomes a bit too much for younger children.
Read Aloud/Nonfiction Uses: Help! We Need a Title! is a perfect read aloud for children kindergarten-fourth grade to inform students about everything that goes into a story! This is a very interactive story that teaches students in fun way what characters, authors, story, setting, etc. are. There are many opportunities that appear throughout reading this that it would be appropriate to stop and ask students questions such as; what do you think the characters should do now? or, Do you ever think they will find an author? An activity you could do with students, post reading this book would be to have them identify parts of the book, both inside such as characters and setting. But also having them identify the outside of a book such as its spine, title, and author name.
independent reading:
There are many dialog bubbles throughout the story that make this book great for independent reading. When reading it aloud, it’s a bit difficult to read every bubble without making the story confusing. By reading it independently, students get a chance to take in everything it has to offer.

[Aljoharah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Help! We Need A Title!
By Herve Tullet

Opening moves

Today we are going to read this book "Help! We need a Title" (show them a book)
What do you think is going to be about? (Children answer). Well, look at the title again, I think the story characters have a problem and they need an author. So, who wants to be an author and help them to write a title? (Kids respond)
Ok now let's open the first page and read. "Hey! Someone's watching us!" oh look at that kids; it seems like the characters are talking to us. Let's see what their problem is and if we can help them.

Identification of the opening move

1. Asks children to think what the text will be about
2. Prompt predictions based on the title
3. Engages listeners by sharing some of the language
4. Invites children to think in advance about the characters and their problems

Rationale for selecting this book

I picked this book as a third book on my set text (dream job) and this time the job is being a writer or an author. It's about a group of characters who faced a problem with chosen a title for their book. I think it would be a great book to show children how writing stories work. This book has many questions in a funny way about writing process. Also, the characters in this book were looking for an author to write a story. This book will inspire young readers to think of a title and will make them know more about a job as an author and how he\she writes a story. Besides, I think the kids will enjoy reading it because it is super funny and full of humor.

[Venus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Review originally posted here at Children's Atheneum

Someone has been opening this book... I think they’re looking for a story! The characters are still only sketches, there’s a setting and a few ideas about color, but who can they turn to for the story? It’s not long until they go after the author and disturb him in the middle of his work...

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Press Here, a strange and wonderfully interactive book where children touch dots in a book and seemingly by pressing, things in the book change. Sadly, this book suffered some major problems, resulting in a story that felt overly long, stilted, and entirely too meta. Don't get me wrong, I love meta...if it is done right. For example: Chloe and the Lion was an hysterical story in which the author and illustrator battle it out. But it was funny and cute and had a plot, none of which existed in this book. I can't even speak about the great illustrations because the art is purposefully made to look like a 4 year-old drew it.

On a wholly different note, I find it interesting that this book is not your standard 32 page picture book, but rather twice that size. This was rather jarring as it could have easily been half that length.

[Joella · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of Press Here has done it again. This is a clever book that teaches kids a little bit about how stories work. The story starts out by the reader opening the book and some characters realizing that there are readers reading the book. But the characters don’t have a story. (They also are just basic sketches of what the characters will be…so there is a fun feeling of creativity and potential that still clings to them.) So they try to figure out just what to do to entertain the readers so they will stay reading the book. Eventually the characters come to the conclusion that they need to go and ask an author for help. So they ask Herve Tullet. He talks a bit (which is wonderfully illustrated with photos of his facial expressions and the rest of him illustrated…trust me, you just have to see it) and then makes a short story. Then the author has the reader “press here” to turn off the light when the author’s job is done. So many fun little bits that will not only entertain a reader but engage them as well. But then again, I’m not surprised with just how great this book is…considering it is another book created by Herve Tullet. Well done.

[Romelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an unfinished book with pictures that appears to be drawn by a kid. When you open the cover, the characters are caught off guard by our presence. And we find them staring back at us. They realize we opened their book in anticipation of reading a story. So they scramble to get their act together and hire a story writer (who happens to be the author/illustrator of this book and his face appears in the story which I find wildly funny) since all that is in the book are pictures of a pig, princess, snake, dog, and stickman.

I love the quirkiness of the book, the humor, and the breaking of the 4th wall concept. It is so much fun to read and I am sure kids will enjoy this. The unprofessional-looking front cover with a title like this is definitely an attention grabber. In fact, I picked this book out myself without anyone's recommendation. I've never heard of this book until now. It was a great find!

This book is not for everyone. It depends on your type of humor. It is definitely a book for a young child or an adult with a child-like heart. I thought it was peculiarly funny and intriguing. For me, it's a novelty book.