Mega-Beasts

‘Rip into another Pop-up of Prehistoric Proportions!’ urges the cover of this colourful new addition to the hugely successful Encyclopedia Prehistorica series. Paper engineers Sabuda and Reinhart have created monsters of giant proportions that literally leap from the page. A sabre-tooth smilodon pounces with teeth bared and claws unsheathed, while a giant woolly mammoth rears up as you turn the page. Not content with these sculptural centrefolds, this talented pair have dreamed up another level of 3-D action hidden beneath flaps: a hand unfurls to reveal the first true mammal, while a flap opens to set off a flick book showing the evolution of the horse. And amazingly it all folds away neatly with a satisfying scraping noise like the claws of some terrible prehistoric beast. The text is lively and informative, with useful pronunciation guides for all that Latin classification. Expensive? Yes, but definitely worth it for the sheer energy of the illustrations, the quality of the production, and the technical wizardry of the pop-ups.