Books On Books

In July this year, a video was posted as if in response to the conclusion of Kyle Olmon’s “Movable Book Artists” in Parenthesis 31 (2020):

There is little in the way of scholarship and criticism in regard to pop-up and movable books. Part of this is the stigma of being represented as a commercial novelty product or kiddie book by twentieth-century publishers. The explosion of artists’ books in the 1970’s gave rise to a subset of book artists that moved beyond the standard textblock to explore the book form in ways that surpassed commercial novelty publishing efforts. To date there is no consensus within the community on the classification of the types of book formats or even the terminology used when describing pop-up and movable elements in a work. Hopefully this will change when articles about pop-up artists’ books appear with more frequency and more scholarship is undertaken.

The Newberry Library’s Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts Suzanne Karr Schmidt gave the Book Club of Washington a reprise of her 2023 exhibition “Pop-Up Books through the Ages”:

During the exhibition, the Newbery Library posted this briefer video (17 August 2023):

For the exhibition, Karr Schmidt also provided an online illustrated article that goes a long way in responding to Olmon’s hope, as does her earlier scholarly essay in the Journal of Interactive Books.

There are earlier efforts to address Olmon’s hope. Jacqueline Reid-Walsh (Pennsylvania State University) offers an excellent bibliography at the end of her “What are Movable Books?” on the site Learning as Play: An Animated, Interactive Archive of 17th- to 19th- Century Narrative Media for and by Children (2014). Another early contribution, especially for establishing terminology in the movable books field, is Ellen Rubin’s site The Popuplady, which Olmon mentions. Rubin, too, provides a bibliography.

But to go back to Olmon’s essay, here are the movable books artists he profiles, including Wayback Machine links to their sites. The latter small but important practice will help future online explorers and seekers of these precursors and analog challengers of digital interactivity.

Barton, Carol
Chen, Julie
Fu, Colette
Hiebert, Helen
Johnson, Paul
Martin, Emily
Petit, Marianne R.
Sheehy, Shawn
Steele, Kevin
UG, Philippe
Yule, Dorothy A.

Further Reading & Viewing

“A to Z: Marvels in Paper Engineering“. 29 March 2020. Books On Books Collection.

“Alphabets Alive! – The ABCs of Form & Structure“. 19 July 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Carol Barton“. 10 August 2024. Books On Books Collection.

“David A. Carter.” 9 December 2024. Books On Books Collection.

“Helen Hiebert.” 18 June 2021. Books On Books Collection.

“Susan Lowdermilk“. 18 January 2024. Books On Books Collection.

“Květa Pacovská“. 19 July 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Kevin M. Steele“. 18 July 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Chisato Tamabayashi (I)“. 27 August 2024. Books On Books Collection.

Alcock, Ian. 5 March 2024. “The History of Novelty Children’s Books“. Morrab Library. Penzance, UK. Video lecture.

Bedworth, Candy. 19 December 2022. “The Surprising History of Pop-Up Books“. Daily Art Magazine.

Karr Schmidt, Suzanne. 2023. “Movable Mayhem: Pop-Up Books through the Ages“. The Newbery Library.

_____________________. 2022. “Flaps, Volvelles, and Vellum in Pre-Modern Movable Manuscript and Print“. Journal of Interactive Books. Pdf available.

Montanaro, Ann R. 1993. Pop-up and Movable Books: A Bibliography. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press.

Olmon, Kyle. 2016. “Movable Book Artists“. Parenthesis 31.

Reid-Walsh, Jacqueline. 2014. “What are Movable Books?“. Learning as Play: An Animated, Interactive Archive of 17th- to 19th- Century Narrative Media for and by Children (2019)

Rubin, Ellen. 2019?. The Popuplady.

Tisinger, Betty and Jo. Vintage Pop-Up Books. Bookseller’s website with links to Jo Tisinger’s “A Comprehensive History and Technological Evolution of Movable Books” and other sources on movable books.

“Pop-up and Movable Books”. Gustine Courson Weaver Collection, University of North Texas Libraries. Accessed 5 November 2025.