Interactive children's book

Interactive children's books are a subset of children's books that require participation and interaction by the reader. Participation can range from books with texture to those with special devices used to help teach children certain tools. Interactive children's books may also incorporate modern technology or be computerized books. Movable books, a subsection of interactive books, are defined as "covering pop-ups, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each of which performs in a different manner. Also included, because they employ the same techniques, are three-dimensional greeting cards."

The earliest form of interactive books are thought to be volvelles, a type of movable book with a wheel, which at the time was used to help display astrological and geographical maps.

It wasn't until the late nineteenth century, partly due to the invention of industrial printing, that pop-ups were created. The first pop-up books published in America were those in the Showman Series published by the McLoughlin Brothers. Still, these books were too expensive and fragile to be practical children's books. Pop-ups opened the door for creation of many other types of interactive books for both children and adults. Despite a brief decline in production during the mid-twentieth century, it was a new idea that spawned quickly and eventually became the highly technological and advanced world of books that it is today.

The coloring book format, of line drawings to which the child adds color, has been in production since the early 20th century.

Gamebooks are much like traditional books, but they offer the reader decisions throughout the book, with the decisions affecting the outcome of the story. At each decision point, the reader is instructed to go to a particular page and/or paragraph to continue the story. The first gamebook debuted in 1941. The format was especially popular in the 1980s.

Hidden object picture books engage readers of all ages by camouflaging items with the intention of children eventually finding them. Whether the hidden object is a hard to spot character or an item specified by the author in a rhyming list, is subject to the book or possibly the series of books it belongs to. Although it is not standard, these types of interactive children’s books are sometimes published with a common theme such as Christmas or life on the farm. Children can interactively experience a selective number of these books as early as age four and beginning at a pre-kindergarten grade level, depending on how easily the hidden objectives can be located. There are several notable authors and illustrators at the frontline assisting their audiences’ development of interactive reading skills in hidden object picture books:

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