Written, illustrated… crafted by Matthew Reinhart, A Pop-up Guide to the Galaxy is a wonderful way to explore Star Wars – and you don’t have to be a kid to enjoy it. This is a huge book (2 to 3 inches thick) with massive pop-up figures that burst forth from the pages – artfully done, with skillful precision and wonderful illustrations. This is not like the pop-up books of your childhood (though of course, kids can and do enjoy it too – as I’ll point out), and could easily sit on a coffee table on display – to the entertainment of many house guests (who would easily identify most of the scenes depicted within – since they are all from the classic movie trilogy). For a full description of each page, click on the link.

The first page is a massive pop-up of the AT-AT walker on Hoth, along with rebels, Snowspeeders and the generators springing to life at various points on the double page spread. These two pages are devoted to some of the planets you’ll find in a Galaxy Far, Far Away – with pop-ups of the farm where Luke grew up on Tatooine, Alderaan going from peaceful world, to destroyed by a pop-up Death Star – as well as Cloud City and Endor. There’s even a map of the Galaxy (far less detailed than The Essential Atlas, but still a nice addition) to give the reader a sense of where each of these planets resides.

The next page is devoted to the alien creatures of the galaxy, with a fantastic pop-up Rancor as the centerpiece. As you open and close the page, his mouth opens and closes and his arms move – bringing the Gamorrean in his fist ever closer to his hungry jaws. All the best creatures get pop-ups – Jawas, Taun-tauns, Sandpeople and more. Then comes the ships of Star Wars – and it’s not surprising to find the Millennium Falcon as the focal point here. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like the Falcon folds out all that well – though it may be a product of having been flat for so long, and it might improve over time. The other ships on this page all work very nicely – with my sons especially liking the TIE Fighter in pursuit of the X-Wing. Probably my only disappointment was with no pop-up of Slave 1 – but perhaps that just would have been too hard.

The next page is an impressive, massive Mos Eisley Cantina scene – depicting the entire bar with multiple rooms and all the recognizable characters from A New Hope. I couldn’t believe that the author had managed to do the entire scene, it really has to be seen to be believed. The other pop-ups on this page are devoted to other colorful characters – such as Han (who through a second pop-up becomes encased in Carbonite), Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt. After that is a two page spread with some of the other characters from the Saga, with a centerpiece of C-3P0 and R2-D2 (though again, they don’t pop out quite right – with 3P0 looking a little hunchback and R2 staying rather flat – again leading me to believe they may improve over time). But the Leia pop-up on this page is fantastic – with her slowly pulling her hood back like she does at the beginning of A New Hope. Even Wedge gets a pop-up!

But the piece de resistance is the final spread, Darth Vader’s head on the last page. As you open the page – his helmet slowly lowers and his mask slowly rises to cover his scarred face, creating a fantastic 3D picture. And all the other pop-ups on this page are pretty fantastic too. There’s the Emperor with bolts of lightening shooting out of his hands – Yoda raising the X-Wing from the swamp of Dagobah – and finally on opposing pages, Luke and Vader popping out to do battle with light-up lightsabers. Truly a spectacular finish to an amazing book.

I haven’t talked much about my kids reaction to the book, but they were very impressed. Heck, my wife enjoyed playing around with it. And the kids would take turns, one would get each side of the double-page spread all the way through – and then they’d switch for a second time through the book. The text is easy enough for them to understand, a summation really of the pictures being highlighted on each page. But it’s really all about the impressiveness of these multi-tiered 3 dimensional pictures popping to life. It’s a really great book, one you’ll be happy to show off.