This is the first Robert Sabuda book I purchased. I love his work so much that I have treated myself to one of his books every Christmas since. ( )

Well, of course, pop-up books hardly count as a significant reading experience. Some would argue that a pop-up book is a toy, not a book. I would argue that a good pop-up book is a book that is a toy. In fact, a good pop-up book is the epitome of good bookmaking, engaging the eye and the hand, and if it is a really good pop-up book, it springs from the intellect and the intuition and exercises both faculties.

So I have a whole shelf of pop-up books in the section of my library that I call “children’s literature for adults.” Right along with the Wizard of Oz and Robinson Crusoe, the Grimms’ and Andersen’s tales, Rootabaga stories and the Wonder Clock by Howard Pyle, we have The Seuss, the Whole Suess and Nothing but the Seuss and The Art of Eric Carle. But just one shelf down, on the pop-up shelf, you will find The Universe, Volcanoes in Action, The Human Body, Frank Lloyd Wright, Those Fabulous Flying Machines, Leoonardo da Vanci, Animals Showing Off, The Creation by Brian Wildsmith, The Voyage of Columbus, the Pop-Up Book of Nightmares, Kubla Khan, Pandora's Box, and quite a few others, all informative, insightful, intriguing—and fun.

But the artist who converted me, who persuaded me to keep the best of those review copies I had been giving to Friends of the Library, was Robert Sabuda. And the first book, of which I have now purchased many copies to give to friends, was The Christmas Alphabet (Orchard Books, 1994). It’s actually a book of little books, for on each double-page spread there are four small, pastel books, one for each letter of the alphabet, one for the title, and the last one for the author’s bio. As with any good alphabet book, some of the letters meet your expectation: open the “a” book and an angel beautifully crafted in white soars into your presence, open the “b” book and a bell tolls in white silence, open the “c” book and the aura of a candle swirls before your eyes. What you expect, except that the intricacy of the engineering belies the simplicity of the design: that angel really soars, that bell really tolls, that candle really glows. The pastel colors of the little books, not the expected reds and greens of the holiday season, contrast nicely with the pure white of the figures that move steadily and sturdily forward.

Then occasionally you’re in for a little surprise. For “k” you find not the Kris Kringle you expect or "kids nestled snug in their beds" but reindeers who “kiss.” Occasionally, colors flash briefly against the immaculate white: for “l” the letter says “Dear Santa” in a child’s handwriting (the ink is purple); for “w” the window is of beautiful stained glass; and for “x”—xmas, of course—the splash of color of the candy cane and the Christmas wish catches you unawares. Always the sophistication of the design is a pleasant surprise, but sometimes the complexity literally dazzles the eye; for example, the snowflake for “s,” and the doves flying around the tree with the star on top makes “joy” a superlative “j.”

Robert Sabuda’s work continues to amaze us. We could not part with his Twelve Days of Christ, The Night Before Christmas, A Movable Mother Goose, or his own Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which (the bio page tells us) he gave up on at age eight but came back to with a flourish. I keep hoping to find his Definitive Pop-Up: Encyclopedica Historica Dinosaurs under my Christmas tree one of these days. But I must tell you, none of them so far balances the engineer’s mind with the childlike imagination the way his Christmas Alphabet did. I am drawn back to that "s" snowflake and "p" poinsettia time and again.

A unique alphabet book offers twenty-six paper sculptures of pure white that seem to leap off the page and celebrate the season of Christmas from A to Z.

Robert Sabuda is a paper engineer extraordinaire. I adore pop-ups. In this book, each page has two letters of the alphabet, each represented by a "card". You open the card, and there is a pop-up representing the letter. There are others that are more complicated, but my personal favorite is probably "Poinsettia", with all the petals.