Matthew Reinhart

I've only just come out of the pop-up book closet, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say I've found the best pop-up books out there. The first one being Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs.

This pop up book is extravagant; there's no other word for it. Most pop up books save the best for last, a grand finale on the last page to leave you with a "wow" at the end. Every page of this book is a grand finale page. If the center image doesn't impress (although I can't imagine why it show more wouldn't), each page spread has small inset pages, and these contain pop up images too; of of these inset pages have more pages with more pop ups in them.

The intricate and sometimes delicate construction of these pages, as well as the writing, seems geared towards an older child, say 10-12 years old. The writing is informative, and there are pronunciation guides for each of the dinosaurs. Best of all, at the end, the authors devote an inset mini-book to why the dinosaurs disappeared; they offer several of the prevailing theories without giving weight to one over the other, ending with we don't know why they disappeared for certain. Responsible writing - I love it.

My only complaint is that each of those mini pages are held down with a photo-corner type thing. They do need to be held down, and I can't think of a better way to do it, but the corners require the reader to slightly bend the pages to get them in and out; over time and use, that's going to weaken the paper.

Saying that though, I can't recommend this book too much; it's fabulous. Kids and adults alike will find something to ooh and ahh over. MT has already asked if he could take it to work to show the guys; admittedly he is in the printing business but I don't think there's anyone out there that won't find much here to be impressed with. show less

When Maurice Sendak, Arthur Yorinks, and Matthew Reinhart collaborate, what do you get?! One of the most uniquely humorous and slightly off picture books you may ever find. In this macabre rendition of “Are you my mommy?”, a young boy, reminiscent of Sendak’s boy in “Where the Wild Things Are”, searches room after room desperately calling out “Mommy”, only to be greeted by various monsters and ghouls. The illustrations are distinctively Sendak’s while the paper engineering show more can be non- other than Reinharts. The intricate pop-ups coupled with the gently frightful illustrations makes for a fun romp during the Halloween season, or anytime you’re in the mood for a scare! ***I just can't wait until a patron finds the topless woman on the "mummy" page! show less

You know those magical pop-up books you see in movies sometimes? The ones that are so elaborate and complex that they couldn’t possibly exist in real life? Yeah, well, so much for that. Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda have created nothing short of magic with this three-book mythology-themed set. Each page has one large, impressive, center-piece pop-up that often extends far beyond the boundaries of the book. In addition to that there are little flaps on every page that lead to their own show more mini-pop-ups as well as some different stuff, such as a story that flips through the pages when you pull a tab (Gods & Heroes).

If you plan on getting one of these for your kid, maybe you should think twice if he/she is very young. The pop-ups are large and elaborate and, as it goes, more delicate than you may be used to. A rambunctious child could easily bend the paper which could possibly cause some of the pop-ups to fail to fold back in properly, causing even more damage. For example, there’s a mansion pop-up in the Fairies volume that will fail to fold back in if a paper tab is resting on the wrong side of another tab (they are not glued or attached in any way and it’s easy to bump it and move it to the wrong side). This happened when my girlfriend and I were looking at the book for the first time and, upon noticing that the pop-up wasn’t folding back in properly, we started examining it. It took probably five minutes to figure out what was wrong. That’s how intricate the designs of these things are. You have been warned. show less

What a neat book. All sorts of dinosaurs pop out of these pages, and there are smaller "mini-books" on each page that have pop-outs too. The short paragraphs about each dinosaur gives a pronunciation guide, plus one or two important facts. (Having just taken the University of Alberta's Dino 101 class on Coursera, I was a bit surprised how much information the authors were actually able to include in so few words!) It's a bit scary when you turn the page and a giant carcharodontosaurus leaps show more out at you, so it might be a little much for the very tiny set -- plus the pop-outs are so very fragile. (The copy I borrowed had a head and a tail that had fallen off of two separate dinosaurs; I was able to repair one, but the other was too complex to figure out.) While there are certainly no shortage of more encyclopedic dinosaur titles, this one is just fun to read.

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LT Haiku:

3D models of
big and small dinosaurs with
lots of facts each page. show less