I wanted to post about these pop-up books for a long time now but I was waiting till after Hanukkah because of certain people who read this blog (who I bought copies of these pop-up books for as gifts). Basically – I like pop-up books, their construction is a big complex puzzle – let's make something 3D out of 2D parts and let's make it squish down back to 2D when the reader turns the page. That's awesome – engineering + art. And these books are on the high end of the pop-up book – they boggle my mind. First of all – how are they only around $20 each? Because the construction – there must be 3 or 4 dozen slots and tabs and things that needed to be glued down to create each page – can a machine do that? Is this all hand done?! For $20?! And when I look at it – I see that often things are printed on both sides of a pop-up, so in the Alice pop-up when I see a giant Alice stuck in the White Rabbit's house, I can peer through the windows to see her inside. And I see wallpaper in there. On top of that, there isn't just one pop up per page, oh no, each page has one giant pop-up in the middle, then little mini books on the side with mini-popups in there too! What…my head just imploded. In the Star Wars pop-up book there are light sabers which light up when you open the pages that shut off again when you close them. I think the dinosaur book has a page where one dinosaur pop-up "bites" the other dinosaur. That's some cool beans.
If these books ever go out of print they are going to start getting expensive in the used book market. I think they're collectibles you'll want to keep for a long time. The only thing I see that people could complain about is that you have to be gentle with these books. So they're more for adults and older children who know how to treat their books. You have to make sure nothing gets caught or torn to preserve them. So far ours are still pristine and both of us (I got the Alice book, the rest I got for the boyfriend) put our books back into the plastic sleeve the books came in after we're done looking at them.
Even Martha is a fan - these two pop-up guys were on her show. And I want to make the pop-up reindeer card that's on the martha stewart website.
specficromantic 
ooo. do you watch Pushing Daisies? one episode involved a pop up good author. you'd like that show.
Oh yeah we've been Tivo-ing and watching it. I love it, though it seems either people love it or find it very annoying. That scene was so cool – "I leeerrve pop-ups!".. I actually looked for it on youtube but couldn't find it on it's own. It's 2:15 in here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VMp-StTsWM
I love these books! They are on my Santa list and I bought the Wizard of Oz book for my nephew…your note reminds me that I have to tell my sister not to let him really "have" it until he is older…since he is 1 year old. But I hope some end up under my tree! Happy Hanukkah btw!
Thank you for the Hanukkah wishes!
Yup, I love these pop-up books even though some people have been laughing and saying pop-ups are for kids. sigh..
Aren't we really all big kids anyway? I recently told all the parents and in-laws that from now on they are all adults that happen to be older than the rest of us.