3-D book display helps stories jump off the page

When the members of Sigma Phi Epsilon visit their faculty advisor Sterling Hennis at his home, he says they’re amazed at his collection of 1,400 pop-up books.

Hennis, a retired UNC education professor and a movable books collector, said his interest in pop-up books sprung from a visit to a bookstore in the ’70s.

His collection started when he found the pop-up book called ‘Dinner Time,’ and he picked it up.

“I was fascinated by the animation — I had never seen one quite like that, I had seen pop-ups growing up, but I hadn’t seen one quite that ornate,” he said. “So I bought it. I took it home, and I liked it, and I bought another one. And then I bought another one, and then I bought another one, and now I have 1,400.”

Hennis spoke at the “Books that Pop” event at the School of Information and Library Science Library, a program full of modern pop-up books with stories that flew off the page — literally.

Pop-up books have three dimensional illustrations that pop off the page when the book is open.

Hennis said the imagination and the creativity of the paper engineers are what excited him most about pop-up books, which he calls amazing works of art. He said he now has a special room dedicated to his pop-ups.

Rebecca Vargha, the head librarian at the SILS library, said she hoped to let people know what type of collection the library has at the event through a display of its collection as well as through talks by local collectors.

She also said although the library has one of the first pop-up books ever published in the United States, which was published around 1886, the collection focuses mainly on modern pop-up books with contemporary titles.

She said she hoped people would come look at the artistry and the amazing construction of the different materials the paper engineers made use of.

“They show action,” Vargha said. “They just capture your imagination.”

She said unlike flat books, which are usually mass-produced, a single pop-up book could be worked on by more than 60 people.

“There’s a lot of handiwork involved in completing one book,” she said. “That’s a really interesting thing to look at.”

UNC associate professor Brian Sturm said a pop-up book that doesn’t work is one of the most disappointing experiences of a reading career.

Sturm, who teaches children’s literature and even a class focused on pop-up books, said the books have value because they do things that static books simply can’t — they move.

“When you say, ‘The lion ran across the prairie,’ in a regular book, you might see the lion in a drawn picture with lines behind it or some blurring effects. But in the pop-up, you can actually have the lion run across the page,” he said. “Pop-ups are doing verbs, where books in general aren’t.”

He said the primary value of pop-up books comes in terms of engagement.

“When you look at a flat page, a two-dimensional page, you can get interested in it and dissect it, but when you look at a three-dimensional object, it’s much more engaging because you can see it from all angles,” he said. “You get the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and when you open the page, it comes jaws open at you and the jaws close as they approach you.”

arts@dailytarheel.com