Mommy? (by Maurice Sendak)

Maurice Sendak's work is such a good fit with Matthew Reinhart's paper engineering that you have to wonder what took the publishing world so long to turn one of Sendak's books into a pop-up. That said, it's difficult to know what the target age for MOMMY? really is. It's too scary for little ones, and for older kids it doesn't have the content interest of other recent pop-ups from Robert Sabuda and Reinhart. Perhaps it's best thought of as an illustrated curiosity for families interested in the artistry of picture books.

There's no dialogue. The baby enters a room and asks "Mommy?" and then an overfold page shows how he conquers the monster he meets. The pop-ups are impressive, bursting out of the page but folding back easily. One of the most clever pop-ups is the mummy who's spun undone.