Robert Sabuda and Mathew Reinhart Make a Great Pop-Up Book Team

When I was a child I loved pop-up books. Then again, what kid didn't? Pop-up books have been around for a while. When my boys were born we got them a few. One was a Mother Goose book with some simple flaps and pull tabs just like the ones I had as a child. The most it did was have a paper mouse go up the side of a clock. They were great at the time, but I had no idea what these books were missing.

In 2005 The Encylcopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs was released and my wife got it for the boys. She was all excited to have found it and I didn't know what the big deal was. My wife had heard it was great and figured the kids would enjoy it. When I opened that book for the first time with my boys we were completely amazed. The pop-ups were so much more detailed than any I had ever seen before. It was like someone had made giant origami sculptures that expanded with each turn of the page and put them inside the book. So many parts would move when opening the pages in order to form paper sculptures. The quality of the book was extremely impressive.

We have since bought lots of their pop-up books. Whenever friends and relatives come over they are quickly drawn to these books as soon as they enter the kids' room. Everyone just wants to open them up. It is really cool to open and close them to see the details that went into the different mechanisms to form the pop-ups.

Robert was born in Pinckney Michigan, but currently lives in New York. He went to the Pratt Institute to help develop his talent. Robert had an internship at Dial Books for Young Readers. He worked as a package designer for a while. He graduated in 1987. In 1988 he illustrated The Fiddler's Son and The Wishing Well for Green Tiger Press. In 1992 Robert was both illustrator and author for Saint Valentine. In the late 90's Robert went back to Pratt in order to teach classes on pop-up book creation. He had learned it through trial and error making messes of paper in his room as a child. Robert typically sketches his books with scissors over 8 months. Then his team of 1000's will put the book together by hand.

Robert has received three Meggendorfer Prizes for his books. The Meggendorfer Prize goes to the best pop-up book and is decided by The Movable Book Society.

• The Christmas Alphabet 1996
• Cookie Count 2002
• The Commemroive Wizard of Oz 2002

Mathew was born in Cedar Rapid's Iowa. But his father became a jet fighter pilot so his family moved around a lot. As a kid he was always drawing and making crafts. His father later became an oral surgeon. Mathew followed his fathers footsteps and went to Clemenson University to prepare for medical school. After graduating he took a year offand moved to New York. In New York he met Robert. Robert conviced Mathew to follow his dream. So Mathew attended Pratt for industrial design and majored in toy design. Mathew helped Robert with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and a few others. His first pop-up book on his own was the Pop-Up Book of Phobias. He also made the New York Times best seller Star Wars: The Pop-up Guide to the Galaxy.