Page Turn Appeal with Guessing Game Books

Grab your readers! Make them look!
Add some guessing to your . . .
 
BOOK!

​As I explored in a previous post, guessing game picture books are a big hit with young readers. (And the adults who share them!) These interactive books allow kids to make a guess, then flip the page to discover if they are correct. They’re natural page-turners!
 
Guessing game picture books also lend themselves perfectly to rhyme. When a word from the question and the subsequent answer are a rhyming pair, readers get a clue to the solution.

As I claimed in my previous post, the key to a successful guessing game picture book is fresh and clever end rhymes. Readers enjoy rhyming answers that are guessable, but not too predictable or cliché. This is still true! But I recently read a rhyming picture book that toys with readers’ rhyming expectations in a fun way.

Copy That, Copy Cat! Inventions Inspired by Animals by Katrina Tangen, illustrated by Giulia Orecchia, is a guessing game book about biomimicry, or how scientists study mechanisms in the natural world to create new technologies. Copy That, Copy Cat! explores the inspiration behind such inventions as snowshoes and sonar. I first learned about Copy That, Copy Cat because it is a 2024 California Reading Association Eureka Gold Winner along with my book, Leafy Landmarks: Travels with Trees. The book is organized so that one spread sets up a riddle with a quatrain that describes the inspiring attributes of a plant or animal.  
​

I swoop and soar, way up high.
My wings cut crisply through the sky.
I zoom so fast, the world is blurred,
Can’t you see that I’m . . .

​Notice that the final word of the quatrain, or four-lined stanza, is left off. Readers much turn the page to the next spread to learn the “answer.” The expectation is that the answer will be a rhyming word that names the plant or animal described in the quatrain.
 
But when readers flip to the next page, they get a surprise!

​The rhyming word they expected may be the inspiration for the invention, but the “answer” – the actual invention – is a non-rhyming word.  Readers can then lift the flap to learn more about how each element from nature is connected to the technology it inspired.
 
Playing with expectations is only one of many reasons that Copy That, Copy Cat! a successful rhyming picture book. This book also has a consistent rhythm of iambic and trochaic feet, which provides a smooth, rollicking rhythm which is fun to read aloud.

I SWOOP and SOAR, WAY up HIGH.
My WINGS cut CRISP ly THROUGH the SKY.
I ZOOM so FAST, the WORLD is BLURRED,
CAN’T you SEE that I’M . . .  a BIRD.

(For more on poetic feet, see THIS RHYME DOCTORS POST ON IAMBS and THIS ONE ON TROCHEES.)
 
Katrina Tangen also makes every word count by using strong verbs (swoop, cut, zoom.).  The use of alliteration (swoop, soar, cut, crisply) and onomatopoeia (swoop, zoom) also add to the musicality of this book. (For more on the importance of lyrical language in a rhyming picture book, read this RHYME DOCTORS POST ON ALLITERATION and THIS ONE ON ONOMATOPOEIA.)
 
Finally, Copy That, Copy Cat! weaves in several interesting educational layers and text features with sidebars and back matter. These elements extend the information about nature and technology. (For more on the importance of layers in a picture book, read this RHYME DOCTORS POST.)
 
Try “copying” the ideas in this post and playing with rhyming expectations in your picture book project. It might be the strategy you need to keep those pages turning!

-Rhyme Doctor Michelle Schaub