pop!

images from [here]
note: pictures do not do this book justice - a real life look is muuuuuuch better. Promise!

I don't know if you have figured it out just yet but one of my vices (aside from shoes) are picture books. Stories don't have to be hundreds of thousands of words long, reduced to 10 point characters and lined up into chapters like picket-fenced suburbia. Not that there is anything wrong with a novel - it is just a slo-w-e-r process relying on inside-brain-imaginatory-pictures, ya see?


But, you know what they say (and so-help-me, I'm going to say it) a picture is worth a thousand words...blah-blah-blah. But seriously, sometimes it can be said better without handfuls of paragraphed character description. Indeed there is a time and a place for all things but there are many times when I would much rather prop myself on a miniature chair in the kiddie-corner of the library and get lost in multitudes of books about varied absurdities. 


Maybe this says something about my attention span which is obviously in limited showing here while I attempt to stay on track to write this post.


There's a childrens bookshop, 'The Little Bookroom', on Degraves st in Melbourne that I love. A few months ago I came across a pop-up book by French artist, Louis Rigaud. You guessed it, (or I gave it away with a picture): Popville. 
Normally I find pop-up books a little bit vain. All showy and brash - pretending to be something wonderful because they cross into the third dimension, when, really, they are completely devoid of an interesting narrative and in most cases get torn apart by the infant reader in a matter of weeks rendering the book a waste of paper unless discarded in the nearest recycling receptacle.
But Mr. Rigaud made me eat my words. It is a delightfully simple concept brought to life through the turning of pages.
Popville, sees a little rural farm house experience the perils of urbanisation. The little red house is progressively dwarfed by construction of roads and buildings and power lines. It is simple, but it is beautiful. 


And, because I believe this book is far from a waste of popping-up paper - I would avoid giving it to little ones with grabbing hands and instead I think it would make a perfect gift for a grown-up-kid, who, like me, enjoys little stories as much as the big ones.


e.


p.s. If you do happen to be in Melbourne CBD definitely stop in at The Little Bookroom. It's cosy and full of stories big and small. You can also see Rigaud's other pop-up book (also a winner).