I just love Halloween in the stores. The Halloween decorations are put on clearance. The Thanksgiving stuff is on sale. And the Christmas decorations are fresh on the shelves.
It’s also the time when we get the year’s batch of Star Wars gift books. Y’know, the ones that are just a little more expensive and, thus, in a wonderful price range for someone looking to get you something special.
One of those books is A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy by Matthew Reinhart.
Get out your thesaurus, because screaming out “Cool!” for all the times you’re wowed by this book will take the shine off that word.
I’m impressed that the retail price for this book is only US$32.99. This book is mind-blowing! (This review is going to be tough to write.)
Yes. You get some pretty amazing pop-ups at each page turn. But then you’ll notice that there are more flaps on the side of each of those pop-ups. Those flaps? More pop-ups. And behind many of those pop-ups? More pop-ups!
Will the madness never end?!
The art on those pop-ups is a wonderful style that, not knowing diddly about art, I’d describe as somewhere between the wonder of kids’ books art and pop art. (Ha! Pop art. I made a joke without intending it.)
The mechanics of the pop-up are such that you don’t just get flapping parts, but you get a wonderful 3-D image to enjoy. The Cantina is particularly impressive and a lot of fun to explore.
And don’t open the pop-ups too quickly or you’ll miss some wonderful surprises. (For instance, check out what you see when Darth Vader’s helmet unfurls.) I especially like Wedge’s, as it looks like he’s taking off his helmet to greet you.
There are actual words in this book; although they’re easy to miss in the wonder that is the art. It’s set up a bit like a social studies textbook. Quite amusing to read.
As a public service, I leave you with more words, courtesy of my thesaurus. You’re going to need them:
dandy, divine, glorious, groovy, hunky-dory, keen, marvelous, neat, nifty, sensational, swell
As a craftaholic, I was completely intrigued by how Reinhart did pop-ups within pop-ups within pop-ups. The man is a genius and inspired me to do more pop-up crafts in general. We even got him to make a pop-up Anakin/Vader mask for starwars.com here:
http://www.starwars.com/kids/activity/crafts/f20071025/index.html
My mind boggles at the mechanics it must take to figure this out. A lot of fun!