Books as art: the wonder of the pop-up

Hannah

Hannah

What better Christmas gift than a book? Well, perhaps one that is also an object of beauty, an intricate and marvellously clever work of art...

For children’s gifts, I am always drawn to pop-up books. I remember so well as a child how they enchanted me – my pop-up book of The Nutcracker was simply magical. It was not merely a book; it was a little world I could explore. When I tried, with my scissors and card, to recreate it, I soon realised that this would be impossible. The pop-up creator is an artist, and the pop-up book is the perfect combination of art and literature.

The pop-up book is a type of ‘moveable book’, along with other kinds of paper engineering such as tunnel books. The first children’s pop-up books were developed in the 1920s and ’30s, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that they became mass produced. Today, it is amazing what publishers are able to create based on the vision of a pop-up artist.

Here are some of the beautiful books I have come across. They really do make memorable gifts which are treasured for a long time.