Paper World: Planet Earth

Watch geography spring to life at the turn of every page! This amazing book, packed with ingenious paper-cuts and lift-the-flaps, lets youngsters dig deep beneath the world we live in to discover for themselves the breathtaking geographical and geological details of our rich and diverse planet. From bubbling volcanoes, rushing rivers and deep sea trenches to dense green jungles, baking hot deserts, vast cave systems, and right down to the boiling hot interior, Planet Earth offers a stunning new way to study the layers and processes of the Earth's fabric. Discover how a volcano erupts, why bright gems glitter inside rocks, learn why clouds form, see hot pockets of bubbling magma, and find out how mountains are formed over millions of years as tectonic movements crumple rocks in the Earth's crust. Lift up over 30 intriguing flaps, peer through pages, and study the fascinating illustrations and facts on every spread as you travel over the sea, up mountain sides and down into volcanoes to get the inside story of Planet Earth.

With sturdy, board pages, the detailed art of artists and designers from paper-cut studio Bomboland, and a superb factual text by Ruth Symons, this unique novelty book will delight all generations and is sure to find a place on the shelves of both schools and home.

* Northern Regional Newspapers *

We love, love, LOVE Natural History books - particularly books that take a closer look at our planet, its wonders, its beauty, and just how fragile it is when it comes to natural and unnatural earth-shaking events.

"Paper World: Planet Earth" by Ruth Symons and Bomboland (that fantastic French illustrative collective) offer views of our amazing home planet from the inside out.

With innovative and artistic use of cut-outs and 'lift the flap' elements, this is a geography lesson like no other, as we take a deep dive beneath the oceans, or dig beneath the planet's surface to find out what bubbles at its core.

There are 30 flaps to lift, and lots of 'peep through' sections in each page spread to keep young minds completely engaged in the subject matter.

It's absolutely perfect for little ones who might want to learn a little more about earth, and how it came to be.

Amazing stuff, beautifully described and illustrated, full of tons of ways to pique the curiosity of little ones everywhere!

* Read it Daddy *
A beautiful hardback book which lets the reader explore inside the plane Earth using ingenious double-sided folding tabs, elevated pages and cutout sections to create a sense of depth with holes, caves, and caverns, tectonic plates, and hiding place for undersea creatures which a child can peer into. The text is ideal for children in years 4-6 interested in geography. This book would be ideal for topics on 'our world'. * School Reading List *

Explore our planet with this unique
book full of stunning paper-cut art. The
cleverly designed pages incorporate a
series of flaps and cut-outs that help
bring to life all the different layers of
our Earth, introducing a variety of
different landscapes. You'll explore
underground cave systems, icy glaciers
and the depths of the ocean; and find
out how a volcano erupts, how clouds
form and how Earth's tectonic plates
work. The eye-catching art was created
by Elisa Cerri and Maurizio Santucci of
Italian illustration studio Bomboland,
which specialises in paper-cut art. As
well as their beautiful illustrations,
each colourful page spread has a
scattering of bitesize stats and facts,
and there is a glossary at the back to
explain the more complicated words.

* The Week Junior *

Lift-the-flap books (for lack of a better term)
are highly undervalued and should be brought
back. There, we said it. Thankfully, it looks
like two-piece Italian illustration studio
Bomboland has read our minds, duly unveiling
a layered (literally) guide to the planet that
we call home.
Containing guides to rivers, caves,
volcanoes, mountains and much more, this
serves as an insightful guide to Earth for
younger readers, cutting open the landscape
one notable feature at a time and laying its
secrets bare for all to see. Side by side with
the illustrations are bitesized annotations,
perfectly pitched towards the target
audience's attention spans.
Realistically this is probably for those aged
nine and below, and it's something they'll
undoubtedly get through quickly, but also
something they'll likely want to return to.
Hopefully this is a sign of more to come in a
similar vein from the folks at Bomboland.

* How it Works *

Not always won over by clever gatefolds or pop-up designs as they can tend to be gimmicky, this book proves that used correctly, paper engineering can inform, inspire and dazzle.
Looking through Earth to see its different layers in lift-up flaps, or feeling the slits and cut outs that show oceanic crusts and oceanic ridges, or pulling up a flap to reveal an underwater volcano, the clever cutting and shaping of the pages gives literal layers of depth and perspective to the biomes the authors wish to showcase.
The newness of the book meant I had to run my hands along the pages to find the flaps, at the same time giving me a physical awareness of the lines of the book - cut out lines in the illustration that highlight the currents in the sea, the canyons in the mountains, the build up of cloud in a tornado.
This is a shrewd design, teaching geography in a physical and tactile way. The text is clear and precise too. Short sharp sentences explaining layers and processes with ease. Detailing tectonic plates, glaciers, caves, deserts, weather and more.

-- Minerva Reads * Minerva Rea