Ah yes, pop-up storybooks...the gateway drug - *ahem* - product (along with coloring books) to movie and TV novelizations (which, in turn, are the gateway drug to great literature....). That's how it was for me, anyway.
As a little kid, I loved to read and draw all the time and an early love of books eventually led me to James Blish's Star Trek "Logs," then to the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and ultimately to modern classics like Lord of the Rings and Dune.
I wonder, if my parents hadn't bought me pop-up books at a tender age, would I love the written word
so much today? Would I be an avid reader (and a published author?)Ah heck, I don't know that I can make much of a grab for the educational value of "pop-up" books, but as an unrehabilitated Star Wars and Star Trek addict, I've always appreciated franchise pop-up books, because - in some primitive way - as a reader you get to be part of the action.
Pull a tab here, and R2-D2 walks across the page; tug on a tab there, and the Millennium Falcon rockets to the stars. Listen - I was a kid in the pre-VCR age (an ancient time...), and anything I could find to help me relive my favorite TV show or movie was manna from heaven, so far as I was concerned.
I still have a few pop-up books in this home-office memorabilia collection of mine, so I figured that twenty-four weeks into this "retro toy" blog series, why not feature 'em? I know this: when I have my own children (a future not too distant, I hope...) I intend to share with them very young the glory of pop-up books. I want to start them out immediately (like, from the womb...) with a love of reading and a love of words. If they like the moving illustrations, what's the harm, right?
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