America the Beautiful: America the Beautiful

I had purchased several of Sabuda's books for my grandchildren, the Cookie Countdown is amazing and what a surprise at the end! I have a friend who loves toys and gadgets and other mysterious things who was being given a fairly prestigious award for his work across the country. I got a copy of America the Beautiful as a gift for him because I knew he would love it. Both he and his wife were just amazed. He sat for hours opening and looking at each page. He still tells me he finds something new each time he looks at it. I knew he would love these books as much as I do and as much as my grandchildren do. Sabuda makes little works of art!

Robert Sabuda rocks the pop-up world once again with this grand and noble entry. Set to the lyric poem "America the Beautiful", the plain white pop-ups stand starkly against the backgrounds, the landmarks so well-known and loved by most Americans that they need no more illustration than an outline. WE know the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty. Just as we don't need the musical accompaniment to the song to hear it in our heads as we read, we need no artistic concept of purple mountains majesties or sea to shining sea. Fill in the blanks yourself, that's what the white silhouettes ask us to do; for one man's fruited plains may not resemble another's. Sabuda allows our mind's eye to envision our own personal ideas of America. Stunning, so beautiful I'll be purchasing a copy for my daughter's 2nd grade teacher as a gift. If nothing else moves you, the minibook with the silhouettes of Columbia, the Liberty Bell & the Twin Towers will bring tears to your eyes. Some memories are so overwhelming, they cannot be represented by a single image but must be suggested by a mere whisper of an outline.

I thought that this book was really great. Even if the pop ups were white they were so well built and with such great detail without even having color. Like the ferry boat on the Mississippi River that accually moves! Robert Subuda is so creative, it is amazing that someone could make pop ups so well. This was a great book and I recommend it to people 8 and up, because older children and adults would be the only ones to really appreciate that type of art. Overall this was my favorite book and should have won the Caldecott award!

Robert Sabuda has made me a pop-up book collector. These are not books, these are miniature architectural masterpieces and Robert Sabuda is the Lenonardo of this art. He is an artist certainly but he is just as good of an engineer to construct these amazements. The first popup of the Golden Gate bridge uses a see-through plastic material which is something new in popup books, but why not, it works! Although I must say this book is a bit over the top in complexity. Each new Sabuda book is such an extravganza that I worry that he will exhaust his bag of paper tricks. So I wish him a long life so he can keep producing these books one per every year. Ocassionaly the printing quality is not quite there (I bought 3) but I don't mind, all is forgiven. Just love this book. Magnificent. Looking for a gift for a Democrat or a Republican in your life? This is the book.

There are pop-up books and then there are pop-up books by Robert Sabuda, who is not only the master of the genre, but who transcends it. What a thrill it is to open the newest of his books to find that he has once again produced a wonderful work of art. It's fun and whimsical...delicate and poignant...simple, yet amazingly intricate. Every page is a revelation, and each subsequent viewing brings new discovery. Here's a book about America that all Americans can love.