Robert James Sabuda (born March 8, 1965) is a children's

pop-up book The term pop-up book is often applied to any book with three-dimensional pages, although it is properly the umbrella term for movable book, pop-ups, tunnel books, transformations, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each ...

artist and paper engineer. His recent books include retellings of the stories of ''

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' is a children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. It is the first novel in the Oz series of books. A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz after s ...

'' and ''

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...

''.New York Times, 2006

Early life

Robert Sabuda was born on March 8, 1965, in

Wyandotte, Michigan Wyandotte ( ) is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 25,058 at the 2020 census. Wyandotte is located in southeastern Michigan, approximately south of Detroit on the Detroit River, and it is part of the coll ...

, and raised in

Pinckney, Michigan Pinckney is a Administrative divisions of Michigan#Villages, village in Putnam Township, Michigan, Putnam Township, Livingston County, Michigan, Livingston County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 2,427 at the 2010 United States Cen ...

. He attended the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Career

Sabuda's specific interest in 3-D paper engineering (i.e.,

s) was sparked by a book he received that was illustrated by

Vojtěch Kubašta Vojtěch Kubašta (1914, in Vienna – 1992) was a Czech architect and artist. He created pop-up books. Vojtěch Robert Vladimír Kubašta was born in Vienna. His family moved to Prague when he was four years old and he lived there his entire li ...

. His interest in children's book illustration began with an internship at ''Dial Books for Young Readers'' while attending the Pratt Institute. Initially working as a package designer, he illustrated his first children's book series, ''Bulky Board Books'', in 1987. Wide recognition only came his way after he started designing pop-up books for children in 1994. Sabuda has used techniques including: * faux

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

(Arthur and the Sword, 1995) *

batik Batik is an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java, Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a ''ca ...

(Blizzard's Robe, 1999) *

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

-textured illustrations (Tutankhamen's Gift, 1994) *

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

s (Saint Valentine, 1992)

Awards

Sabuda presently works from his studio in

and is involved in a wide variety of projects that involve movable paper. He has also released a video of his working style. Sabuda has also been awarded the ''Meggendorfer Prize'' three times, an award instituted by the
Movable Book Society of America
' in honor of German illustrator

Lothar Meggendorfer Lothar Meggendorfer (6 November 1847 in Munich – 7 July 1925 in Munich) was a German illustrator and early cartoonist known for his pop-up books. He was first published in 1862 in the ''Fliegende Blätter'', an illustrated comic weekly, and fro ...

. He is a multiple No. 1 New York Times best-selling children's book creator and has over five million books in print published in over 25 languages.

Personal life

Sabuda married technologist James Talvy on June 25, 2016, at the 10 Horse Art Center in Highland, New York.

Bibliography

Printed references

Newspaper biography

Newspaper articles

News references

Critical acclaim

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Web references

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References

External links

* (bibliography is only as an illustrator for speculative fiction works) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sabuda, Robert Pratt Institute alumni Living people 1965 births American people of Polish descent American children's book illustrators Pop-up book artists People from Wyandotte, Michigan People from Pinckney, Michigan