For my To Kill a Mockingbird project as a Sophomore I decided to make a pop up book, and since it went pretty well then, I decided to do another one for 20% time. Since it is pretty difficult to make a book "blog friendly", I'm making a how-to for the blog instead. (That's what this is!) Enjoy!
Materials you will need:
1. The Book (obviously)
2. Construction paper
3. Regular, every day printer paper
4. Normal paper for writing stuff down
5. Pencil and/or pen
6. Tape AND glue-- this can be a glue stick or a bottle, but the stick is much easier to use and dries quicker. The only downside is that the pages may 'unglue' a bit if you don't use enough.
What To Do:
What To Do: 1. Read the Book! This may seem like an obvious step, but it still needs to be said. Don't just sparknote it either, because in this project it is very obvious. You need to know everything that is happening in a scene to be able to make it with paper-- if you only know the basics you will only be able to make the basics.
2. Write down the major events. (That's what the normal paper is for.) Don't write the story ("Let's go this way!" said Bob.), write what happened. You will write the story later.
3. Think about (or draw if you are so inclined) what each point will look like on paper. If they wouldn't make good pictures or would be hard to show, change them around a bit. Make sure the story still flows together.
4. Make a list of all the characters you will have in your book and how many of them you need. For example, if Bob is in six pages, you will need six of him.
Now You Can Start!
1. Figure out how many pages you will need. For each page you will need one piece of full-sized printer paper, folded in half. (hamburger style) In the finished book each page will be about the thickness of three halves of paper, so make sure your story doesn't need too many pages or you will have a really thick book.
2. Start making your characters. It doesn't matter if they are simple or really complex, as long as each different person is unique enough (even a different shirt color) to be able to tell them apart. Make as many as you need for each person, but don't make them all the exact same. If your whole book is people standing next to each other with different backgrounds, it will get boring. put people sitting, or with their arms in different positions, etc.
3. Make your backgrounds. Open one of your pages (so the long side is on the left and the crease is horizontal) and lay out pieces on the top half only. The background doesn't have to cover the entire page, but it looks a little nicer if it does. Once you have them nicely laid out, go ahead and glue them on.
4. Make it a pop-up book! Do not glue your characters directly to the background (unless they aren't important and so actually belong there.) In order to make the main characters pop out, you have to get creative with the scissors. close your page and cut two lines on the crease. (See the pictures for what it should look like.) Open the page back up and reverse the tab you just cut so the crease goes the opposite way. When you close the page, it should fold in, leaving a blank space on the outside at the crease.
5. Glue the characters to the tabs. Glue them only to the portion below the crease, or the book won't work. make sure nothing is tall enough to stick out the top when the page is closed.
6. Repeat this until you have all the pages of your story made. Once everything is in place, you will have to put the pages together. The best way I have found is to use both glue and tape. first, stack up the pages so the crease is on top and they go in order. next, you want to glue the bottom of the first page to the top of the second page, making sure things line up as close as possible. Glue the bottom of the second page to the top of the third page, and so on, until all the pages are glued together.
7. Once the glue dries, go back and tape the pages together right at the crease, the place where the pages are the most likely to come apart. Fix any places that are peeling as well. (If you are like me, there will be a lot)
8. Now that you have the book, you need words to go in it. Take your summary from the very beginning and write it in book format, as simple or as complex as you prefer. Since this is a pop-up book, I like to write it as a little kid's story, but you can do whatever you like. Type out your story (or write it-- I won't stop you) and print it in a large enough font so that each section will mostly fill the page it goes on. Glue them in on the lower portion of each page.
9. The last thing you need to do is make a cover. This isn't strictly necessary, but it gives the book a finished look and helps to hold everything together. Take construction paper and cut it slightly larger than the front of the pages. You'll need two, one for each cover. For the spine (fancy, I know) take a different colored piece of construction paper and cut it the same way-- just obviously not as big. You want it to be slightly larger than the bound pages so that it fits right when the book is open, and also to have room to glue it on.
The spine piece needs to be folded very carefully. Fold it in half, (hot dog) and then fold a small portion of the long edges the other way so it looks like a 'V' with little wings on it. These little tabs will glue onto the covers, making it look all pretty without a tapey edge. The fold in the middle makes the book operate better when you are reading it. All that is left to do is to glue it onto the pages, print out a title, glue that on, and rejoice over completing your book!
That's all, Folks!
THE END!
