To Activate Space Portal, Lift Here

by Antoinette Portis

Overview

This book is an interstellar portal, and the aliens inside want to get to know you!

Before you lift the cover, be sure you’re ready to meet Zrk and Blrg. They’re not so different from you—but to them, you’re the alien!

After their initial shock at seeing you through the portal, they’re eager to see what kind of teeth you have, compare home planets, and maybe team up for a prank. You met as aliens, but by the time the portal closes, maybe you’ll be friends.

To Activate Space Portal, Lift Here is an interactive treat sure to delight young galactic explorers. Antoinette Portis’s bright lines and bold colors pair perfectly with humor that also offers a subtle message of acceptance. Whether for bedtime or circle time, this is a portal you’ll want to open!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823459858
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	10/07/2025
Pages:	56
Product dimensions:	8.28(w) x 11.26(h) x 0.42(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Antoinette Portis is the author of many inventive books for children, including Not a Box, Hey, Water!, A New Green Day, and A Seed Grows. Her work has received a Sibert Honor and two Geisel Honors, as well as multiple Best Book of the Year designations. A recipient of the prestigious Sendak Fellowship, she lives in Southern California. Visit her at Antoinetteportis.com.

Editorial Reviews

[A] meta intergalactic romp. . . . The brightly colored, heavily black-outlined characters take center stage in Portis’s eye-catching and varied compositions, as do their playful personalities. . . . The clever premise stands up to repeat readings—power up this interactive adventure for out-of-this-world storytimes.
—The Horn Book (starred review)

Will generate a lot of giggles. . . . Thickly outlined in black, the bold illustrations will show well to a large storytime. Portis provides extreme close-ups that give the artwork a surreal, Cubist feeling. . . .Zany, out-of-this-world fun.
—Kirkus Reviews

[A] speculative metafictional romp. . . .Portis (A New Green Day) has cooked up something wonderfully weird and slyly relevant—both an interactive experience and a comic reminder that perspective is relative.
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2025-05-30
Diplomacy is easy—if you don’t look hungry.

Opening this book, savvy readers will spot the wordspower andauto translate in the bottom-right-hand corner of each double-page spread, with a colorful dot by each indicating the battery life of the device…er, book. Within a few page turns, a portal opens to reveal two extraterrestrial friends, yellow-skinned Blrg and orange-skinned Zrk. While the alien duo initially worry that readers are here to eat them, these concerns evaporate when they notice those “very tiny teeth.” While some messages get a little garbled (“What is your planet called? Planeturth? Never heard of it”), the interaction is mostly pleasant, and a colorful menagerie of extraterrestrials come to gawk before the book’s power level drops enough that the portal must close. Overall, it’s an amusing plot device, and one that will generate a lot of giggles from a receptive audience. Thickly outlined in black, the bold illustrations will show well to a large storytime. Portis provides extreme close-ups that give the artwork a surreal, Cubist feeling. Blrg’s and Zrk’s amorphous faces may initially confuse perceptive readers—the number of eyes on the aliens varies from one to two—but the visual gag is addressed in the text. UFO lovers will find this tale heavenly.

Zany, out-of-this-world fun.(Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews