Welcome to the Neighborwood is the debut and first trade pop-up book of paper engineer and pop-up book creator Shawn Sheehy. His interest in themes like ecology and evolution has led to the creation of this well thought out and carefully designed pop-up book full of ingenious pop-ups and interesting facts about the animal wildlife.
Update! Welcome to the Neighborwood is winner of the 2016 Meggendorfer Prize!
In this book, we meet seven builders who each manage to survive in their own way together with their fellow woodland neighbors and their habitat. Each “nonhuman builder” has its own unique skills and qualities which are shown and described beautifully in every pop-up. Sheehy links one animal to the next by defining how they live together as neighbors and eventually, on the last page, all the animals come together to form a harmonious wildlife ecosystem and manage to maintain a communal balance.
Every pop-up is surprising because of the techniques and beautiful details that are used. Welcome to the Neighborwood still gives the feeling of real hand-dyed cotton/abaca paper. Its a very well done replica of the original art book, printed on beautiful paper. A clever mix of real paper layers and layered “cut out” artwork, enhance the effect of even more depth and layers. Each spread contains a harmonious palette of colors and patterns that work great with the overall theme and give the book a very nice papercraft look.
Together with playful language and facts, this book is both fun and educational at the same time and therefore very enjoyable for children (and adults) who are interested in nature and animals.
Author: Shawn Sheehy
Published by Candlewick Press: Pop edition
Order on Amazon: Welcome to the Neighborwood Pop-Up Book
More Meggendorfer Prize winners
7.8
Beautiful!
Our review
This pop-up book is already a classic
