Books |
Robert Sabuda
By
Published: Jan 01, 2007
Category:
Children
When Robert Sabuda was growing up in a small rural town in Michigan, his mother would read him bedtime stories. He loved them and learned early to read, but the bigger thrill was art. “I spent hours, days and weeks drawing, painting, cutting and gluing,” he has said. “My bedroom was a constant whirlwind of pencil shavings, drippy paint brushes and mounds of paper scraps.”
His mother begged him to clean up his mess. He pretended not to hear her. But she really didn’t mind. At her dancing school, her young son helped make the scenery and backdrops for her shows.
At school, his teachers asked him to decorate their bulletin boards. There he discovered collage. After school, he’d rush home to fold paper into model houses. And then came his biggest thrill: folding and stapling paper until he’d made his first book.
Robert Sabuda is now the king of pop-up books for kids. [Note to parents: If your kid loves something when he/she is young…. nurture that.] This is not the opinion of an aging adult who has pressed Sabuda’s books on his compliant kid. This is the opinion of just about every 4-to-8 year-old I know.
You can test this yourself. Put two pop-up books in front of a kid, one by Sabuda, one recommended by your neighborhood bookseller or librarian. Watch the kid choose the Sabuda, just about every time. Why? Because Sabuda’s books aren’t like anyone else’s pop-ups — in addition to selecting much-loved stories, telling them plainly and illustrating them colorfully, his pop-up pages are models of technology.
Consider his Alice in Wonderland. Open it, and a brilliant green forest leaps out at you. Turn the page. Now we have a house with arms and legs sticking out of windows and chimneys. Oh, but you missed something — how easily you made that transition. "The key thing at the beginning is not so much that the pop-ups pop up, but they have to be able to shut," his collaborator has noted.
The drama is extreme in these pages. A bawling baby. The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, with shiny silver on the rims of the cups. A crazy quilt of playing cards. And, on most pages, little books in the corners that take the story deeper.
Or The Wizard of Oz. Amazing tornado on the first page — but don’t miss that taut string between the house and the storm. And those poppies! They’d make the Drug Czar want to breathe deep. The Emerald City gleams a psychedelic green-gold. But never fear — plain old Auntie Em is all that’s needed for a happy ending.
Sabuda’s most recent books are non-fiction and science-based. There’s a reason. “If a teacher can use a book that can capture attention for a second in a saturated audience — boy, that benefits everybody,” Sabuda explains. “And if it has good, accurate information to use in a lesson plan — wow, that’s us getting appreciation for our work that we never originally anticipated."
These recent books, like “Wizard of Oz”, generally have smaller books tucked on some spreads inside. "If a reader is interested in just a big pop and wants an overview, that’s great," Sabuda says, "but if they want to delve just a bit further, those little mini-pops will allow them to get that information, too."
Information? That’s for kids. I’m too busy gawking at the beauty and the know-how.
To buy “Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up” [ages 4-8] from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy “Encyclopedia Prehistorica Mega-Beasts” [ages 4-8] from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy “Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: Sharks and Other Sea Monsters” [ages 4-8] from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Commemorative Pop-up” [ages 4-8] from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: A Pop-up Adaptation” [ages 4-8] from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy “Winter in White: A Mini Pop-up Treat” [ages 4-8] from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy “The Night Before Christmas Pop-up” [ages 4-8] from Amazon.com, click here.
