Take it from Alice: You never know what’s going to pop up next. But, when Eleanor Heldrich generously donated her collection of pop-up books to Special Collections in the Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library – it was a happy surprise, indeed. The collection includes everything from The Jolly Jump-Ups: Favorite Nursery Stories (1939) to In the Beginning: The Art of Genesis (2008) – and each of the 1,200 books is a treasure in and of itself.
“All movable books are works of wonder and delight, but when a movable book combines story, art, movement, scale, color and balance with elegance and flair, it becomes a treasure,” says Heldrich, whose son, Rick, is a professor in the College’s chemistry department, and who reviews movable books for a children’s book-review service. “Pop-ups are paper sculptures pressed between the pages of a book.”
As the proud new owner of the thousands of paper sculptures that spring from the collection, the College is grateful for Heldrich’s considerable gift.
It just goes to show, generosity can pop up just about anywhere.
