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Two members of our Inklings Picture Book critique group recently made a pilgrimage  to see the original pop-up art of Robert Sabuda and David Diaz in an exhibit “The Wizards of Pop-up.”  It was at the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature in Abilene, Texas.

Austin author-illustrators Christy Stallop and Erik Kuntz basically spent the day with Sabuda, Caldecott Medalist Diaz and museum executive director Debbie Lillick. They had dinner with Diaz .

Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhar,t are considered to be the  premier contemporary  pop-up book artists in the U.S.

Maurice Sendak tried his hand at 3-D moveable art with great results.  Mommy? released in 2006 by Michael di Capua Books/Scholastic was  a collaboration between him, author-playwright Arthur Yorinks and pop-up wizard Reinhart.

Erik and Christy’s field trip got me thinking how much I enjoyed pop-ups and  any kind of  “3-D” art as a kid.

Maybe because it broke the picture plane and added one more dimension of “make believe.”

I once owned a reprint of a Turn of the Century pop-up book  about  a Victorian family’s visit to a  zoo. don’t   remember the title or the artist

As you turned each page, you saw the same family and a different cage of animals come to life before you.  The animals did stay behind the bars, thank heavens.

The book gave you a charming experience of visiting a zoo.

There was this one issue of “Jack and Jill” magazine ( I was a proud 10 year old subscriber) that had a sort of 3-D assemble-it-yourself Dinosaur Diorama.

It featured Pteranadons, Brontosauruses and maybe a T-Rex.
You placed them into a primeval forest stage-set with a curved backdrop that gave depth to a world of  volcanoes, ferns, and Jurassic beasts.

Of course the best dinosaur is a 3-D dinosaur.

After doing my part in the assembly I felt as if I’d done the whole mural myself.  It wasn’t like I’d painted the dinosaurs. I just punched them out of cardstock and inserted them into their places in the scene. But I had helped to contribute to the 3-D effect!

Pop up books have been around since the Middle Ages — for kids books, since the 1800s. Here, according to Amazon.com is Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart’s List of “Top 10 Pop-Up Books”

Speaking of 3-D papercraft, Kids Can Press has re-released the eminently kid-friendly The New Jumbo Book of Easy Crafts by Judy Ann Sadler. A redesign and smartly graphic illustrations by Caroline Price keep176 pages of step by step procedurals from feeling  burdensome.

Mark G. Mitchell hosts the How To Be A Children’s Book Illustrator blog.