The Ensworth School

I have been a second grade teacher at The Ensworth School in Nashville , Tennessee for the past twelve years. We are a private P1 to 12th grade co-educational school. Our school fosters the love of books and reading from the day a child enters our classroom!

Ever since my own children received a copy of The Christmas Alphabet from my mom in 1995; I have been a huge fan of Robert Sabuda’s books. I always enjoy introducing my children to the fabulous books of Robert and Matthew Reinhart. This year my class made pop-ups after our author study and used imaginary characters developed in our study of fairy tales. The children also wrote letters to Robert Sabuda explaining what they loved most about his work.

Amy Rich and Ensworth Second Graders

Here are answers to some questions from the students at the Ensworth School, Nashville Tennessee.

1. Did you draw on the pieces of paper or did you just get different colors of paper?

We made all the papers here in our studio with acrylic paints, sponges and paint brushes. For each book, we can make hundreds of different colored and textured papers!

2. What is your favorite color?

Matthew: Fluorescent orange
Robert: blue

3. On the pop-up houses, how do you make the lights on the house light up?

Once we've designed the pop-up house, we carefully added tiny wires under the roof. The thin wires end in tiny LCD lights and are attached to watch batteries in the back cover of the book. The wires are hidden underneath the page of the book so that when you pull the tab, the lights "magically" light up.

4. What is your favorite pop-up book?

Robert: My favorite book is usually the one I've just finished, which is Peter Pan! It was really hard to get done, but it's such a great adventure.

Matthew: Hmmm, that's hard because there are so many great pop-up books out there. My favorite I think is Haunted House by Jan Pienkowski -