The success of these books brought new excitement, new investors, and new support for the designers of books in the pop-up book genre. Beautiful movable books on traditional culture and architecture followed, along with renewed interest in creating more pop-up myths & legends, and interesting classic literature adaptations as well.

In 2021, the world’s attention was drawn to this explosion of exciting new pop-up offerings from China when paper engineer Wang Wei won the Meggendorfer Prize, the world’s most acclaimed paper engineering award, for his title Opening the Forbidden City. This is an architectural pop-up book that unfolds into a 3 metre-long look at the Forbidden City that was crowdfunded via Chinese Kickstarter platform Modian. 

Chinese pop-ups continue to go from strength to strength. To help you build a collection of the very best available on the market – whether it be to have more fun while you are learning the language, or just to admire the beautiful artwork – I’ve made a list here of some of the very best Chinese pop-up books currently available, including a sneak peek inside each of them and some notes on where you can find them. I hope you enjoy it!