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.
