Book By Its Cover » Alice in Pop-Up Wonderland

4.23.07

Alice in Pop-Up Wonderland

J.Otto Seibold

I was reminded of this book after seeing it on the Rare Device blog. You can pick up a copy at the store (which by the way is showing work from Lisa Congdon- if you’re in the Brooklyn area you should definitely check it out! Or you can even buy works online here.) This book is so awesome because it takes the wacky drawings of J.Otto Seibold and makes them three dimensional. The paper engineer James Roger Diaz gets hardly any credit, but he should. (Check out the long list of books he’s designed here.) There’s lots to interact with- open doors and reveal more pop-ups, spin a wheel to see an enlarged Alice move around in the rabbit’s house, pull down a tab and make the Cheshire cat disappear only leaving his smile. The text is all in signature J.Otto style, ornamented with curly serifs, 3-d effects and lots of color. Critics were unhappy with the cut and pasting of excerpts from the original Lewis Carroll text. I think if you’re looking to read the Alice in Wonderland story(boring!), this book is not for you. If you are looking to have a crazy Alice experience and be surprised and excited with every turn of the page(yay!), then pick up a copy. Also check out his other books, like my other favorite Olive, The Other Reindeer.
p.s. Who knows what happened to J.Otto’s site?? It was an incredible site with lots of animation-for some reason I can’t locate it.

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10 Comments

04/23/07 9:45am

Kathleen wrote

this looks like so much fun. my students are designing alice’s adventures in wonderland (all typography) right now…its an old risd project. maybe next year I should include a mandatory typographic pop-up:)

04/23/07 11:05am

Janet wrote

This is a great book, one of my kids’ dog-eared favorites.

04/24/07 9:57pm

g.e. wrote

his url is changed to http://www.jottodotcom.com
and see his flickr stuff.
and check out his book club for target, too!

04/26/07 8:17pm

Abbey H wrote

This book is great and I also love his book Gluey: A Snail Tale (written by Vivian Walsh). I work at a picture book museum (The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art) and wish that his work would be shown there- it’s so fun!

05/11/07 11:25am

Dana Thompson wrote

His website is now at jotto.com

Thanks for posting this cool book!

08/8/07 6:31am

1466374543@msn.com wrote

L’emplacement tres cognitif avec la masse des choses interessantes. 1308065122

09/28/07 6:27pm

LyndaV1 wrote

What a wonderfull find. Each Christmas I send My best friends daughter a funky book. This year I’ll be getting myself a copy as well. Thanks!

01/11/08 3:07am

Yana wrote

Here is an animation website:
http://www.feelgoodanyway.com/interactive/Alice.swf

…I bought that book on bargain price ($2.50!!!) in Borders, than couldn’t sleep all night – for the next day I came in the store and bought some more… actually – all of them… for the perfect gifts!

02/18/08 8:58pm

helen:) wrote

I LOVE J.Otto and I have 2 of these! Great Pop Up action. Great illustration. Just wonderful. Hard for kids to read though – but they want to look at the pictures and move things around anyway.

01/25/12 3:04am

Scot wrote

“I think if you’re looking to read the Alice in Wonderland story (boring!), this book is not for you.”

Lewis Carroll’s timeless classic “boring”? BORING??

Let me guess — you’re a product of the MTV generation, with the attention span of a housefly.

I read “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” for the first time at age 7, and loved it. I still re-read it every now and then. A pity if you can’t appreciate the wit, whimsy, satire, and Victorian charm of the original text without having it abridged, condensed, gimmicked-up and mashed into pablum. I feel sorry for you.

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© Julia Rothman 2007