The story in three lines. Lan and Inkling fold Kami like the cover of a little book and step into a Venice printing house in 1501, the week the first small, portable books come off the press. Bettina, a binder's daughter, wants a book for her pocket but has only one spoiled sheet. Lan nearly cuts the whole middle fold before Mark stops her; the cast fold the sheet into eight boxes, cut one short line, push it into a cross, and press it into an eight-page book that fits Bettina's pocket.

One question to ask. "Why did Lan have to stop cutting?" The answer the story wants: the drawing's solid line stops at the middle two boxes. Cut all the way and the sheet falls into two strips; cut only the short line and the paper can open into a cross and fold into pages. Then ask why the soft folds made the paper bulge.

One thing to do at the table. Take a sheet of A4 or letter paper. Fold it in half three times, edge to edge, then open it: eight boxes. Fold it in half the long way and cut only along the middle crease between the two middle boxes. Open it, fold it the long way again, and push the two ends together so the middle opens into a cross. Fold it round into a book. Number the pages, then draw a story, one picture a page. A grown-up can help with the scissors.

The grown-up layer. In 1501 Aldus Manutius in Venice printed a small Virgil in the first italic type, one of his "portable small books". Printers made small books by folding one big sheet several times; folded three times, a sheet gives eight leaves, the size called octavo. The one-sheet book children fold today works the same way.

Let your child tell the story back in their own words first.