In this video clip, two children, a girl and a slightly older boy, reveal their understandings about how books work. Notice that the children use similar strategies to turn the pages, and that neither child is concerned with beginning on the first page or viewing the pages in sequential order. The girl is primarily concerned with how the book functions as a mechanical device. When she looks at the book (01:20), the girlsearchesfor a place where the page is separate from the page under it, hooks her thumb under there, and turns the page. She also attends to the outer binding and the crease inside the book where the binding meets. When the boy looks at the book, he pauses to gaze at the illustrations. For him, flipping a page is a means for viewing a different illustration. The boy realizes the gorilla depicted inside the book is the same picture that is on the front cover, so he looks at the front to confirm (02:15). Each time the boy turns to a new page he signals his participatory role in the experience of reading a book by repeating the same expressive phrase.