Harry Potter: A Pop-Up Guide to Hogwarts
£47.50
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A 3D masterpiece celebrating Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from New York Times best-selling pop-up engineer Matthew Reinhart.
Harry Potter: A Pop-Up Guide to Hogwarts is an exhilarating, interactive guide to the iconic school of witchcraft and wizardry. This book features spectacular pop-up re-creations of key locations inside and outside Hogwarts castle, and it opens flat to form a pop-up map of the castle and its grounds – including the Quidditch pitch, the Forbidden Forest, and beyond.
In addition to large pops on each spread, numerous mini-pops will bring to life beloved elements from the Harry Potter films, such as the Marauder’s Map and the Flying Ford Anglia. Each pop will include insightful text about Hogwarts as seen in the films, making for a must-have collectible for fans of the Wizarding World.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Bantam Press (1 Nov. 2018) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 5 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 178763115X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1787631151 |
| Dimensions | 24.2 x 6.3 x 28.9 cm |
by Djilly L.
What fantastic book, intriguing and imagination galore.
by Sarah (Feeling Fictional)
Harry Pottter: A Pop-Up Guide to Hogwarts is exactly what it sounds like, an interactive 3D pop-up model of Hogwarts Castle as well as locations like the Quidditch pitch, the Forbidden Forest and even part of Hogsmead Village. There are five large models that can be opened separately or if you’re very careful you can fold out the entire book into one huge map. Although it was fun to open the book out fully once I found that when you’ve done that it’s so big that you can’t really appreciate all of the little details so I actually prefer to look at the models separately so I can fully enjoy what I’m seeing.
This is the kind of book that you never get tired of because there are just so many little hidden doors and windows to open, additional pull tabs that bring out new pop-ups or move characters around etc, that every time you look at a page you find your eyes drawn to a new detail that you didn’t spot before. Honestly, the amount of detail is insane and if you have a torch on hand for looking inside the models you’ll find even more. Spot Hagrid baking rock cakes in his house or Harry and his friends having a Herbology lesson in the greenhouse, you can even help Harry catching a golden snitch on the Quidditch pitch!
This book isn’t cheap so I was hesitant to make the purchase at full price but it was well worth the money when I found it going cheap on Amazon. As lovely as it is I still think it’s over priced at £50 but for around £20 I think Harry Potter fans will be very happy with it.
I found it really difficult to take decent pics of the pop-ups but hopefully these photos should give you some idea of the amount of detail included
by Iolanda
My daughter first found this book at a well-known science fiction/fantasy store, and I had to try really hard to keep her from spending all her precious pocket money. These pop-up books are quite expensive after all. Eventually we got it for her birthday, for a slightly better online price. This really made the birthday.
I already have a small collection of modern and vintage Star Wars Books. And in particular these massive cardboard pop-up books are excellent created by Matthew Reinhart are excellent. It’s truly the summit of paper-art and simply brilliant. It’s really nice to go through them with the children, their cousins/ friends or anyone with a remote interest in Harry Potter. It’s just full of surprises and overflowing with details. Though the accompanying texts to the scenes are not really adding much to those with knowledge of the books and movies. .
As a book it reads nicely, its has essentially 5 major scenes, but each has little folds that reveal more characters and additional scenes. It is quite interactive (though somewhat fragile) with levers. And then the pop up book can be folded out carefully to create a giant 3D diorama. This book will not only look nice on your coffee table, it will probably need every inch – in fact, you’ll probably need 2 or 3 coffee tables to fold out the whole 3D diorama.
Given the delicate nature of such books you do want assist young Potter enthusiasts when browsing through it. But if you manage to keep it tidy this impressive hugely entertaining book will draw family and friends interest for decades to come.
by Sarah (Feeling Fictional)
I was very disappointed with this book, I’ll explain why. I have quite a few pop-up books of which some are even carousel dollhouses from the 90s that were actually played with and remain functional and in good condition, so I have those books in mind to compare with the quality and durability of the papers used in this book, as well as certain technical choices of paper engineering.
Let me start by saying there is a video on Youtube showing the book in action, and I highly recommend you look it up. That video is very well edited, HOWEVER the book did not have anywhere near the same wow factor in person. In the video the book looks very impressive but in reality it is very cheaply made using some of the weakest paper I’ve seen considering the price.
The price is insanely high considering the poor quality and durablity of the item. The paper is thin and will wear with only a few uses. The pull tabs, especially the Pink Lady, is too easily ripped because that kind of engineering would require sturdier paper and more careful assembly by those who put it together (in fact those tears are visible at 1:42 in the youtube video I mentioned, just watch the bottom of the Pink Lady portrait there when it’s pulled open).
Also, some of the worst decisions were the tab-slot fittings in openable doors, which should have been fixed. Since they couldn’t be bothered to glue those parts neatly, when you try to pull the doors open the tabs easily come out of the slits while also tearing them wider, destroying the fit – you will have to glue them yourself as a repair and paint the frayed damaged white bits with ink markers.
Some elements don’t always fold back to where they should so you need to be extra careful and adjust things while slowly closing the pop-ups – it shouldn’t be that way. Some of the higher structures seem to not successfully come into place, with walls just sticking inwards or outwards awkwardly, looking ugly and unimpressive.
Finally, the colors also seemed somewhat dull and lifeless, a bit on the grey side and not very saturated, but that’s the least of the problems.
Positive points are some of the smaller pop-ups, the Forbidden Forest which was well thought out and works well, and the Quidditch pitch although I had to insert a knife to open some of the towers. But the few positives don’t justify the price, at least not in my opinion.
To summarize, what appalled me the most was really the low quality of the paper. In person it’s thin and fragile, with pointy bits and corners already bent and frayed even in new condition. This book had great paper engineering ideas but sadly they were poorly implemented because the makers decided to cut corners on paper quality – and yet still demand a ridiculous price for the final result.
It’s an expensive book, so I don’t recommend it unless someone is an avid Harry Potter collector and just wants it for that reason.
by Djilly L.
It is like a book coming from my dream. The details, the design, the colours … Very impressive.
I would put 5 stars if the books didn’t need such a careful handling.
It is quite fragile, so I hardly think it will last.
I unfolded it completely and it doesn’t get completely flattened out, so it cannot really be used as a “map” since 2 pages are kept in an angle of 15 degrees, which is a lot.
But this doesn’t make the book less magical or less valuable.
I bought it at 22 GBP, brand new, so I consider it a bargain. Its original price is a bit high.
I bought it for my kid, but I will give it to him when he becomes an adult due to the delicate handling that the book needs.