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A trip abroad =  the perfect opportunity to go book shopping!  While in Paris I spent an afternoon at a bookstore called “Chantelivre,” perusing their delightful collection of picture books and comics/graphic novels. (The latter category, “Bande Dessinée,” are hugely popular in France, for all ages.)

Picture Books on display at Chantelivre

The same titles and names seem to dominate the shelves at my book stores at home, but in France I found lots of new treasures to discover. (There were a couple familiar faces: Mike Curato’s Little Elliot and Oliver Jeffers’ crayon books, and some classics like Max et les Maximonstres, a.k.a. Where the Wild Things Are. )

I was dazzled by this pop-up book by Anouck Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud, Dans la Foret du Paresseaux (In the Forest of the Sloth.)

There's something magical about opening a pop-up book.

The complexity of the pop-up engineering was nicely balanced by the simple geometry of the illustrations. With just a few words, the text made me anxious for the plight of the sloth, who we watch napping as danger nears. The book shows the ravages of deforestation, but it is not without hope.

The saleswoman asked me the age of the child I was shopping for. I explained (slightly sheepishly) that I was just buying books for my own collection. She introduced me to a few French classics, including Gabrielle Vincent’s Ernest et Célestine series:

In this volume, Ernest and Célestine lose Siméon (the stuffed penguin) in the snow.

…And she also pointed out Benjamin Chaud’s Poupoupiadours, which combined whimsical and detailed illustrations with creative use of die cutting. Children could read this book again and again and see new things every time. There are several books in this series and they’re all pretty delightful.

Holy detail, Batman!

I couldn’t resist Franz, Dora, La Petite Fille et sa Poupée by Didier Lévy and Tiziana Romanin for the charming story and elegant illustrations of Berlin in the 1920’s. Franz is none other than Franz Kafka, and the book tells the story of how a chance encounter in the park with a little girl who lost her doll brings a smile back to the girl’s face and helps the disillusioned writer rediscover the joy of creating.

I enjoyed the expressive lines and restraint in the illustrations.

Then there was Le Merveilleux Dodu-Velu-Petit, by Beatrice Alemagna, which was like stepping directly into the weird and wacky imagination of our plucky little protagonist. What is a “Dodu-Velu-Petit,” you say? Why, it’s this pink creature (obviously!) It is described as, among other things, “hairy, inedible and extremely rare.” The creature’s many uses are shown on the page at right. (They translate as follows: pillow, scarf, decorative plant, personal masseur, incredible hat, treasure-collector, domestic help, living sculpture, and paintbrush.) I think this is actually an Italian book translated into French.

My favorite page, showing the many uses of the Dodu-Velu-Petit.

Then there's this fold-out page, where the butcher threatens the little girl with a bloody knife.

Among the Bande Dessinée, I particularly enjoyed Les Carnets de Cerise By Joris Chamblain and Aurélie Neyret for the way that the story alternated between standard comic book cells showing action and scrapbook-like pages showing the protagonist’s journal and sketches. The series follows the eponymous 11-year old, a curious aspiring novelist, on her various adventures. Digital illustrations can sometimes feel a little cold, but in this case the artist did a great job of adding detail and texture to bring the art to life.

I think these books would be a lot of fun for kids in the 8-12 range.

The only problem was finding enough space in the luggage to bring them all home.

A pared-down, stylish tale packed with adrenalin and mischief in equal measure about a child’s ability to see possibilities and transform the world around them, That’s My Hat! by Anouck Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud follows what happens when a hat created by a child is blown away on a gust of wind. Turning the pages takes us on a journey across the city to retrieve the hat, visiting various shops, a zoo and a library along the way. But when the child reaches the top of a skyscraper it looks like disaster will strike – can they use their imagination to save the day?

Although we may have seen the device before in Harold and the Purple Crayon, Anthony Brown’s Bear Hunt and Aaron Becker’s Journey, the idea of a child using a pencil to transform their world, changing something simple into an object of their imagination (in this case starting with a semi-circle being turned into a hat) never grows old. Perhaps this is because the ability to see alternative realities is a very real experience of childhood; we have all turned sticks into stallions ready for galloping, cardboard boxes into boats or stones into pets.

What That’s My Hat! brings afresh to this storytelling mechanism are very clever illustrations. Made of only 10 basic shapes and 5 flat colours, with simple black line embellishments, Boisrobert and Rigaud have created 3-D scenes to explore, with the use of intricate pop-up mechanisms and lots of hidden detail behind the folds and bends of the paper. It’s amazing to see the complexity that can be constructed from very basic building blocks. The magic is captivating and perhaps also empowering for young readers – these illustrations have a child-like achievability about them.

The ending draws the story full circle (literally, if you take note of how it began and what it concludes with), deeply satisfying readers, listeners and observers of all the fine and clever details in this playful book.

That’s My Hat! sent us to one of our favourite crafting materials – a bunch of paint chips (free! lovely thick card! great colours!), and from them we cut out lots of each of the 10 different shapes which appear in That’s My Hat!. For the circles I used a couple of outsized hole punchers and the kids loved the physicality of using them; I love it when the girls enjoy the preparation as much as the intended activity!

It was then time to let loose our imaginations, creating scenes with just the 10 types of shape and a black pen to add detail.

The girls loved looking closely at how the shapes were used in the book, copying some of the ideas for themselves, but also coming up with their own transformations for some of the shapes.

I love the grumpy looking mum and the dancing spider in this spread!

Whilst making stories with our shapes listened to:

Other activities which might work well alongside reading That’s My Hat! include:

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Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of this book by the publisher.

The Fairy-Tale Handbook: An Interactive Adventure Through the Magical World of Fairy Tales is the work of illustrator Tomislav Tomić, contributor to the fantastic StoryWorld series of detailed cards that encourage creativity and storytelling in kids and adults, and Libby Hamilton, contributor to the encyclopedically awesome The Monstrous Book of Monsters. The Fairy-Tale Handbook: An

Dinosaurology, the newest entry into the Ology series of interactive books that present themselves as scientific journals chock full of artifacts, flaps, fold-outs and envelopes, hides its inspiration in a brief letter at the end of the book from Sir Conan Doyle dated June 4, 1930. In his letter to the president of the British Association of Intrepid Explorers, Doyle explains that his good

The adage “Books can take you anywhere” is beautifully exemplified by My Pop-Up City Atlas by Jonathan Litton (@JonathanLitton) and Stephen Waterhouse (@SWIllustrator), a thrilling, whistle-stop tour through 70 cities around the world.

Using pop-ups and a whole host of paper-engineering whizzery to bring to life exotically coloured urban scenes from cities both well known and surprising, this book has given us the dream ticket to travel the globe from the comfort of our sofa and duvets.

This book is no long, dry list of capital cities. In fact, it places locations together by type, creating interesting juxtapositions and taking you travelling via unexpected routes. For example you could travel London-Athens-Luxor-Xi’an-Dawson City (a historical cities tour), or Vatican City-Mecca-Varanasi-Salt Lake City (a religious cities tour). Perhaps Helsinki-San Fransico-Honolulu-Sydney-Cape Town (a coastal cities tour) is more your cup-of-tea. By grouping cities together by type the book explores answers to a question posed on its opening page, “Why do people live in cities?”, and what could have been a boring list of facts instead becomes a story with options and opportunities.

The 3-D city scapes are great fun, with lots of illustrative details partially hidden underneath and beside so that the views of the city are rich from which ever angle you look. We’ve enjoyed looking for photos which show the same city and seeing how closely the illustrations match real life; indeed I think the publishers, Templar, have missed a trick here in that they could have made this an internet-linked book (a little like many of Usborne’s non-fiction) as the facts and images have definitely left us hungry to find out more, amazed and intrigued by the facts and vistas inside this book’s covers.

“Further reading” (online or in a suggested bibligraphy) could also have provided background to the various statements throughout the book which are stripped of any (in its broadest sense) political commentary; mention is made of the Aral Sea and how it has shrunk but the causes of this change are not even hinted at. Likewise it is noted that the Dalai Lama used to live in Lhasa without any indication of why this is no longer the case. Some (adult) readers may feel it is better to leave such things out, but I believe facts work best when they are contextualised and linked to a bigger narrative – precisely why I think the themed grouping of cities works so well in this book.

A well produced, engagingly presented, and exciting book, My Pop-Up City Atlas will make young readers curious and no-doubt spark some wanderlust, quite possibly in their parents as well!

There’s an interesting interview with the book’s illustrator, Stephen Waterhouse here, on Illustration Cloud.

After reading My Pop-Up City Atlas we too wanted our own city to pop up at home and decided the best way to go about this was to use building blocks. But to give things a twist we first put our plain wooden blocks in the oven!

Once warm (about 10 minutes at 160C, starting from a cold oven), we illustrated our blocks with wax crayons, drawing windows, doors and other architectural features.

The warmth of the wooden blocks made the wax melt ever so slightly, creating a lovely feeling when colouring the blocks, and also an interesting effect with the oily wax melting slightly into the wood. Whilst the blocks were warm, it was easy to work them simply by holding them in a dishcloth. If they cooled too much in the time it took for us to decorate them, we just put them back in the oven for a couple of minutes.

Once our set of blocks was fully decorated, we laid down roads on the kitchen table, using masking tape…

And then it was time to start building architectural gems!

In no time at all an entire customised city had popped up in our kitchen. We used wooden blocks we already had (you quite often see them in charity shops), but I did order some more interesting shaped wooden pieces from Woodworks Craft Supplies (who also supply lovely wooden peg doll blanks).

Whilst decorating our blocks and building our city we listened to:

Other activities which could work well alongside reading My Pop-Up City Atlas include:

What books and songs about cities do you and your family love?

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of My Pop-Up City Atlas from the publishers.

Every Monday is a celebration of all things non-fiction in the online children’s book world. If you’d like to read more reviews of children’s non-fiction books, do take a look at the dedicated children’s non-fiction blog: http://nonfictionmonday.wordpress.com/

<!-- START INTERCHANGE - ANIMAL OPPOSITES -->if(!window.igic__){window.igic__={};var d=document;var s=d.createElement("script");s.src="http://iangilman.com/interchange/js/widget.js";d.body.appendChild(s);} <!-- END INTERCHANGE --> Animal Opposites : A Pop-Up Book written and illustrated by Petr Horáček is an absolute delight to read, which is exactly what a pop-up book has to be to get

POP-UP:  Everything You Need to Know to Create Your Own Pop-Up Book with paper engineering by Ruth Wickings and illustrations by Frances Castle is THE COOLEST BOOK EVER!!!  I know that I haven't dedicated much time to pop-up books here, but they have always held a special place in my heart, probably from the first time I ever heard the phrase "paper engineering." Although I didn't know

<!-- START INTERCHANGE - CINDERELLA A 3 DIMENSIONAL FAIRY TALE THEATER -->if(!window.igic__){window.igic__={};var d=document;var s=d.createElement("script");s.src="http://iangilman.com/interchange/js/widget.js";d.body.appendChild(s);} <!-- END INTERCHANGE --> I adore the illustrations of Jane Ray. She has had a long and prolific career and I have reviewed her books The

As a parent, I think I bought exactly one pop-up book over the last nineteen years. Ok, that's not entirely true. I bought the same book twice. By the time my third child was born, the first two kids had worn out our copy of Paul O Zelinsky's magnificent Wheels on the Bus, celebrating a 20 year anniversary in 2010. We loved it so much we needed a new one. Which brings me to my point. I suspect

My Pop-Up World Atlas by Anita Ganeri and Stephen Waterhouse can be added to the fantastic non-fiction pop-up books by Christiane Dorion and Beverly Young,  How the World Works How the Weather Works. I know that pop-up books and their purchase can be a touchy (or non) issue with some parents and I am going to take a sentence or two to convince you of why you should buy your children (or

In my mini series reviewing the books shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2011 next up is How The World Works by Christiane Dorion and Beverley Young

A pop-up book covering a wealth of ground, How The World Works is a tremendous introduction to topics as diverse as the solar system, evolution, plate tectonics, the water cycle, weather systems, photosynthesis and food chains.

Each double page spread covers one theme and explores it using exciting illustrations, illuminating paper engineering and and array of both key and intriguing facts presented in inviting, bite-sized portions. The illustrations have the rich colours and boldness you often see with Barefoot Books (though this is actually published by Templar). The short sections of text make this an undaunting book for young independent readers.

As well of plenty of flaps and tabs, there are lots of instances where the paper engineering really adds to your understanding of the topic under discussion. For example the big bang explosion is a brilliantly executed bit of fold out paper – simple, but very effective as it mimics an explosion. How the continents have drifted over time is beautifully illustrated with a flip book – by flipping the pages we can actually see the continents drifting from the supercontinent Pangaea about 200 million years ago to their current location.

Again, the paper engineering is put to exceptional use to illustrate what happens at different types of plate boundary; Andy Mansfield, the brains behind the pop-up aspect of this book, has created paper tricks that are not only great fun but, but informative and meaningful.

This book contains a subtle but consistent message about how we as humans are having an impact on the earth and what the consequences of our actions will be. In the section on carbon there are tips about how we can reduce our carbon footprint, whilst the pages devoted to how plants work draw attention to the problems caused by deforestation. In the discussion of ocean currents and tides we’re introduced to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, “an area of plastic rubbish twice the size of Texas” floating in the Pacific ocean, whilst when exploring the the planets, the large quantity of space junk orbiting the earth is highlighted. Not only does this book tell us how the world works, it also makes us think about how it’s beginning to break down.

4 Comments on How the world works…, last added: 11/23/2011



Tom the cabin boy and the ship's cat watch as the Pirates use the map to find the hidden treasure

These are the three illustrations as individual layers, drawn out in pencil. The lines on the top layer indicate where 3D folds would be made to bring the front layer forward. I needed to work out the cut-out areas for each layer, to display the scene below it.

This was the facing page where the text would go. It had an ornate border to match the illustration.

If you read my review of How the World Works by Christiane Dorion, with illustrations by Beverly Young and paper engineering by Andy Mansfield, then you will have an idea just how cool How the Weather Works is. These books are perfect for curious minds from age four to fourteen. Packed with information that comes in little bites and bigger chunks, you can pick and choose what you read to your

I have mentioned Emily Gravett's picture books often on my blog (she's made the Best Picture Books list every year) but I have yet to feature her in her own post.    While all of her books warrant their own reviews, The Rabbit Problem definitely leaps off the page.  Taking the Fibonacci sequence as a jumping off point, Gravett uses a rabbit  and a calendar (the book even has actual HOLES in the

POP-UP:  Everything You Need to Know to Create Your Own Pop-Up Book with paper engineering by Ruth Wickings and illustrations by Frances Castle is THE COOLEST BOOK EVER!!!  I know that I haven't dedicated much time to pop-up books here, but they have always held a special place in my heart, probably from the first time I ever heard the phrase "paper engineering." Although I didn't know what

I have to apologize right now.  My scanner did not even come close to doing justice to Robert Crowther's fabulous new books, The Most Amazing Hide-and-Seek Alphabet Book and The Most Amazing Hide-and-Seek Numbers Book.  And, being lift-the-flap, flip, and pull books, their amazingness is even more difficult to capture.   I am sure that I am not the only parent who dislikes pop-up type,

We have been exploring the Robert Sabuda site and spent a while working on "Simple Pop-Ups You Can Make" and while we feel simple may be a bit misleading, it was fun.

This month on the site, they are giving away a copy of Maurice Sendak's Mommy? illustrated by frequent Sabuda collaborator Matthew Reinhart.

What a better way to spark the minds of future scientist than with a pop-up book that tells you How the World Works? Written by Christine Dorion and illustrated by Beverley Young, there is something to draw the eye on every page. This book will grab the attention of kids who are starting to ask those sometimes difficult to answer questions like, "Why does the weather change?" "Why does it rain

From the book-as-objet-d’art files comes a new version of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly illustrated by Jeremy Holmes. Jeremy sent me a copy of his new book, and it’s a very cool thing indeed. The entire thing is a large illustration of the titular old lady, and the pages of the book comprise her torso and innards. So each time we turn a page, we’re looking at an x-ray view of the old lady’s stomach contents which, in this case, are delicate collage-style illustration by Mr. Holmes.

As a final treat, turning the last page upon the old woman swallowing a horse, her eyes close.

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Tags: Books, Illustration, Jeremy Holmes, pop-up

Now this is a good word! My logo and avatar are all about being wrapped up in a bow.

But my submission for Illustration Friday's " wrapped" theme was inspired by Georgina Matich of Argentina and the lovely ATC she made for me in 2007. It is titled "Silla" and I adore it! So when the ArtHouse 10,000 project sent me the word "chair" I asked Georgina if we could collaborate on this and she graciously allowed her image to be repurposed for this show. I have been working all summer on book illustrations, a large houscape and a wine label and now summer is almost gone... it has been nice, creative and quiet. I just wrapped the silla/chair image for the September 1st deadline and I hope you like it Georgina and Thank you so much for your kindness, talent and cooperation.

Georgina Matich's Blog

valeriewalsh 2009

When we last wrote about ABC3D, the highly imaginative pop-up alphabet book by Marion Bataille, the book was merely a hand-produced mockup.

The book is now shipping, and I’m holding one in my hands now. It’s a marvel of creativity and ingenuity. I want to get one for every designer on my Christmas list.