Everyone remembers that pen. The pen was very distinctive.
There is a particular kind of object that a generation does not forget — small, tactile, quietly clever — and when it disappears from shelves, it leaves a gap that only nostalgia can measure. Yes & Know, the invisible-ink activity book born in 1971, is returning under Tree Town Toys with modernized color-reveal technology and licensing partnerships spanning Hasbro, Peanuts, and Highlights for Children. The revival is less a business transaction than an act of cultural retrieval, built on the understanding that parents and grandparents carry certain childhood artifacts as gifts they are waiting to pass on.
- A beloved childhood staple vanished quietly from shelves when its original publisher moved on, leaving a generation of nostalgic adults with no way to share it with their children.
- Tree Town Toys traced the dormant rights to an Australian publisher, forged a partnership, and launched six titles in 2024 — proof that the appetite for the brand had never fully faded.
- The original invisible-ink mechanic has been upgraded to a full-color reveal system, yet the iconic white-and-orange pen remains unchanged, honoring the sensory memory that defines the brand.
- Major licensing deals with Hasbro's classic game titles, Peanuts Worldwide, and Highlights for Children transform Yes & Know from a nostalgic curiosity into a broad 2026 product line.
- The strategy mirrors Tree Town Toys' successful Spirograph revival — betting that nostalgia-driven purchasing, when paired with the right partners, can reliably bridge generations.
Michelle Delacourt remembers the pen — white barrel, orange cap — and so does nearly everyone who grew up with Yes & Know. First published in 1971 by Lee Publications, the invisible-ink activity books were a fixture of road trips and Christmas stockings for decades, promising to reveal answers and puzzles with a single swipe across the page. Then, quietly, the brand disappeared. When a retailer pressed an old Lee Publications catalogue into Doug Cass's hands at a toy industry event and asked him to bring it back, a revival began.
Cass, a veteran of thirty years in toys and another thirty in publishing, tracked the dormant rights to Hinkler, an Australian publisher. He partnered with Hinkler's principal, Stephen Ungar, and through his company Tree Town Toys launched six new titles in 2024 — Mystery, Games, Animals, Mythical Creatures, Sports, and Space. The technology had been updated: working with ink partner NoCopi, the team replaced the old invisible-ink system with a full-color reveal mechanic. The pen itself, however, stayed exactly as remembered.
The strongest sellers — Mystery and Classic Games — confirmed what the team had suspected: nostalgia was the engine. Parents and grandparents wanted to give their children what they had once loved. That insight shaped the licensing strategy. Hasbro, a prior partner on the successful Spirograph revival, was a natural fit. Clue, Monopoly, Battleship, and Operation all became licensed Yes & Know titles for 2026, each book built around the spirit of its source game rather than simply borrowing its name.
Peanuts Worldwide and two Highlights for Children titles rounded out the lineup. Highlights' signature hidden-picture feature translated with particular elegance to the color-reveal format, the ink making each discovery feel earned. Tree Town Toys had already demonstrated it could resurrect dormant brands and find eager markets waiting on the other side. Yes & Know, it turns out, had never really been forgotten — only misplaced.
Michelle Delacourt remembers the pen. Everyone does. White barrel, orange cap—the kind of detail that lodges itself in childhood memory and stays there for fifty years. That pen is why Yes & Know is back.
The invisible-ink activity books first appeared in 1971, published by Lee Publications. They were everywhere once—the kind of thing parents stuffed into car seats for road trips, small enough to fit a Christmas stocking, clever enough to keep a child quiet for an hour. You'd get a trivia question or a puzzle, run the special pen across the page, and the answer would bloom into view like a secret revealed. The original publisher positioned the books for readers aged 6 to 66, 7 to 77, 8 to 88—the idea being that boredom had no age limit. For decades, Yes & Know was a reliable fixture in the toy aisle and the gift-giving calendar. Then, quietly, it vanished. Lee Publications moved on to other things. The brand disappeared from shelves. Retailers noticed. One of them walked up to Doug Cass at a toy industry event, placed an old Lee Publications catalogue in his hands, and asked him to bring it back.
Cass had spent thirty years in toys—PlayMonster, Kahootz, Giddy Up—and another thirty in publishing. He was curious enough to investigate. The Yes & Know rights, he discovered, had migrated to Hinkler, a publisher in Australia. He reached out to Stephen Ungar, Hinkler's principal, and they became partners. Tree Town Toys, Cass's current company, would handle the revival. The first six titles launched in 2024: Mystery, Games, Animals, Mythical Creatures, Sports, and Space. Classic Yes & Know territory.
The update was technological. Working with Hinkler and a new ink partner called NoCopi, the team developed a full-color reveal system that activates with a redesigned pen. The old invisible ink gave way to something more vivid. The pen itself—that iconic white barrel and orange cap—stayed the same. Delacourt understood that some things shouldn't change. The color-ink books performed well. Mystery and Classic Games became the strongest sellers, tapping directly into the nostalgia that had driven the original brand. Parents and grandparents wanted to give their children what they had loved.
That nostalgia became the lens for licensing. Delacourt and her team considered which partners would feel like a natural fit—which brands carried the same weight of memory, the same sense of offline play in an age of screens. Hasbro kept surfacing. The company had a track record with Tree Town Toys; they'd worked together on Spirograph, reviving that classic drawing toy to considerable success. Delacourt's team drew up a dream list: Clue, Monopoly, Battleship, Operation. All four became licensed titles for 2026. The content wasn't just slapping game names on generic puzzles. Each book was built around the game itself. The Battleship edition included a wordsearch of ship types, bingo, trivia, and crosswords—all designed to evoke the spirit of the original game.
Beyond Hasbro came Peanuts Worldwide, another brand steeped in generational memory. Then two titles from Highlights for Children, a magazine that had lived in doctor's offices and subscription boxes for generations. Highlights' signature feature—hidden pictures, the kind where you hunt for a sailboat or a sun hidden in an illustration—translated seamlessly to the color-reveal mechanic. The invisible ink made the hunt tangible in a new way.
The strategy was deliberate. Tree Town Toys had already proven it could resurrect dormant brands. Spirograph came back and found an eager market of adults who remembered it and wanted to share it with their own children. Yes & Know was following the same path: a product that had been loved, lost, and now recovered. The 2026 lineup represented the first major push. Delacourt spoke of big plans ahead. The pen—that white barrel with the orange cap—would remain constant across every license. Some things, once they lodge in memory, shouldn't be redesigned.
Citações Notáveis
A retailer placed an old Lee Publications catalogue in Doug Cass's hands at a toy industry event and asked him to bring back Yes & Know because no one knew what had happened to it.— Michelle Delacourt, describing the moment that sparked the revival
Parents and grandparents have such fond memories of the brand that they want to share it with their own children and grandchildren.— Michelle Delacourt, on the nostalgia-driven market for revived brands
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did the pen matter so much? It's just a tool.
Because it was the magic. Kids didn't just read the answer—they revealed it themselves. That act of discovery, the pen in your hand, the color blooming up—that's what stuck with people fifty years later.
And that's why you kept it the same?
Exactly. We could have modernized it, made it sleeker or fancier. But the moment you change the pen, you break the thread between the child who had it and the parent buying it now.
So this is really about selling memory.
It's about selling the chance to share memory. A parent who loved Yes & Know in the car can now give their kid the same experience. That's powerful.
Why Hasbro specifically? There are other game companies.
Hasbro games are memory too. Clue, Monopoly, Battleship—these are things people played as kids. They're not trendy. They're permanent. That alignment matters when you're asking people to trust a revival.
And if it fails?
Then we learned something about what people actually want versus what we think they want. But the early numbers suggest people do want this. The mystery and games titles are already the strongest sellers.