How to Make Holiday Pop-up Cards

Christine Linge is a past director of the Toronto & District Parent
Co-operative Preschool Corporation and a freelance writer.

Pop-up expert Joan Irvine presents a third pop-up craft book featuring
appropriate greeting cards for 31 holidays from many cultures and
religions. The instructions are clearly described and illustrated, and
should enable most children about 8 years and up to create exciting
pop-ups all by themselves. The large and colorful drawings will allow
adults to assist younger children in a jiffy.

The book is made even more usable by the fact that the materials
required are small in number, inexpensive, and easily obtained. A legend
explains how these tools are color-coded in the illustrations, so one
can see at a glance which items are required.

It is readily apparent that Irvine carefully researched the cultural
and religious events for which she chose to create cards, as the
impressive list of acknowledgments indicates. Each card is prefaced by a
succinct lesson on the event being celebrated. Irvine groups the cards
into broad categories such as “celebrating friendship and love” and
“celebrating the New Year.” Thus the reader, while gleaning a little
about diverse cultures and religions, gains a sense of the
“similarities between different cultures” and may fulfil the
author’s wish that we “learn to understand and care about people
around the world.” Highly recommended.