By Lewis Carroll
Robert Sabuda folds all of Wonderland into pop-ups that leap up off the page. It's a short, trimmed Alice built to be marveled at, and it's delicate enough to want gentle hands.
Sabuda pulls out the greatest hits of Alice and turns each one into paper that springs to life: the tumble down the rabbit-hole, Alice shooting up tall and shrinking small, the Cheshire Cat grinning down out of a tree, the Mad Tea-Party, the Queen's croquet game, and a whole pack of cards bursting up into the air at the end. The words are a trimmed-down version of Carroll's story, just enough to carry you from one spread to the next, because here the paper is doing the real telling. Look in the corners and you'll find tiny booklets with even more pop-ups folded inside them.
This is one to own rather than borrow, and to keep somewhere safe rather than in the toy box. The paper structures are genuinely astonishing and, in the same breath, delicate — one eager grab and a spread creases for good. I'd hand it to a child around five to nine who can turn pages slowly, and sit right beside them the first few times so the wonder and the care happen together. A child who already knows Alice gets the thrill of watching it jump up; one who doesn't gets a gorgeous first way in. It also makes a real gift for a grown-up who collects beautiful books.