The Magic of Pop-up Books

Books are normally thought of in terms of the pages that are looked at. They are simple, two-dimensional objects that we read. There are words on the page and occasionally (31) that help us see more clearly what the words are being used to describe. They are sources of knowledge, but more often than not they aren’t considered very special.

Some books take it another steps further, though, and their pages jump (32) and form three-dimensional objects. These books can make adults smile and cause children to be wide-eyed with (33) . Called pop-up books in our times, they have been around longer than most people think they have.

Pop-up books were originally called mechanical books, and these paper (34) took a lot of work to make. They were not for children at all, although centuries ago there were practically no books made for children. The mechanical books helped illustrate (35) things as the phases of the moon or were used to teach complex theories.

What Do You Think?

We have all had bad experiences with restaurants, stores, or hotels. Maybe you have gone to a restaurant that served terrible food. Perhaps you have gone to a store that had high prices or bad service. Or maybe you have booked a hotel and found out later that the room was nothing like the advertisement.

These days, we have a better chance of preventing these unpleasant surprises. We can do this by using apps. “App” is short for “application”. An app is a computer programme on a smartphone. You can use apps to do almost anything. Apps can help you play games, get directions, talk to friends, and so on.

If you want to find information about a store or a hotel, you can use a review app. Review apps help us evaluate services and products before we hand over our money. The idea is very simple. After you go to a restaurant or stay in a hotel, you can post a review with one of your apps. You can say anything you want. If you like a hotel you stayed in, you can tell people that it was wonderful. If you think that the food in a certain restaurant was bad, then you tell people not to eat there. Other people can use their apps to read your reviews.

Plenty of people prefer not to use these review apps. Many of these people prefer to go out and decide for themselves whether or not a service is good. However, review apps are getting more and more popular every day. Some apps are for specific services. For example, Tripadvisor focuses on travel, and Goodreads focuses on books. There are also other, larger apps that provide information for just about every service that you can think of.

The Urban Gardener

Cities are home to skyscrapers and apartment buildings, and it’s rare to find wide, open spaces within them. With limited space for parks and gardens, architects and city planners often find it challenging to incorporate greenery into neighbourhoods. One creative solution is to grow plants on unused areas like walls or rooftops. It’s a popular idea, and now rooftop gardens and green walls have been spouting up in cities around the world.

There are many benefits to having green spaces to the urban landscape. Adding gardens to rooftops or walls can create a pleasant environment - what was once a grey cement wall can become a colourful, blooming garden. The CaxiaForum art gallery in Madrid, Spain, is a famous example - one of its walls is covered with 15,000 plants from over 250 different species. In other cities, green walls are being used more functionally, to cover up construction sites and empty buildings and to prominently decorate the lobbies of office buildings.

Using plants to cover walls and rooftops can also keep cities cooler in the summer. Buildings and roads absorb the sun’s heat and hold it, causing a building or neighbourhood to stay warmer longer. Plants, on the other hand, provide an enormous amount of shade. There is evidence that growing a roof or wall garden can lower a building’s energy costs. Many cities offer tax discounts to businesses with these features.

In New York City, public schools plant rooftop gardens that can reduce heating and cooling costs. In addition to saving the school money, teachers and parents love the gardens because of their educational value – it’s a fun and healthy way for their kids to investigate the world around them. “For the children, it’s exciting when you grow something edible,” said Lauren Fontana, principal of a New York public school.

These green spaces are also used to grow food. In recent years, rooftop gardens have slowly been included in the “local food movement”. This is based on the concept that locally grown food reduces pollution since it does not have to be transported far. Vegetables are being grown in rooftop gardens by schools, churches, neighbourhoods and even restaurants. Chef Rick Bayless serves “Rooftop Salsa” at his restaurant in Chicago, USA, using only ingredients grown in his rooftop garden.

Rooftop gardens and green walls may require a bit more effort to grow and maintain. However, hard work always brings rewards, and with green spaces, the rewards are plentiful.