By Pamela Pease
Paintbox Press, 2009
$36, ages 9 and up, 20 pages
If your child refers to his bike helmet as his "lid" or dreams of "bagging a peak" in a road race, he'll be fascinated with this stunning pop-up about the Tour de France.
Worthy of propping up on a shelf, this coffee table-sized book covers all the basics of the race, from terrain to etiquette, using images that rise from the fold, pull out from the page and spin to reveal facts.
There's even a simple map of France overlaid with erasable acetate so your child can plot the route of the greatest cycling race on Earth, then wipe it clean in time for next year's tour.
Other highlights include a time trial demo, in which a racer leaning over his bicycle pedals as fast as he can over the course of 1 or 2 minutes.
As your child pulls the tab out of the right side of the page, a paper cutout of a cyclist races ahead a few inches, triggering his back wheel to spin and the seconds counter ahead of him to advance.
One of the most visual elements is a two-page fold-out of Paris with mini pop-ups of the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triumph, as packs of cyclists sweep past the Seine River toward the finish line.
