Few artists can pinpoint the moment that started them on their career path. Fewer still have experienced such an epiphany at the dentist. But New York Times bestselling author Robert Sabuda remembers the fateful day his mother tried to calm his anxiety with a pop-up book in a Michigan waiting room. "I was so excited I forgot all about the dentist," he glows. Anyone who encounters the pop-up creations of Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart knows just how he felt. It's hard to avoid such cliches as "eye-popping" when faced with a vine-covered temple that shoots up nearly two feet (Reinhart's The Jungle Book) or an emerald paper balloon that inflates and rotates as it opens (Sabuda's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). New York Times Book Review senior editor Dwight Garner raved over two recent creations, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Sharks and Other Sea Monsters (Candlewick Press, $27.99) and Mommy?, Reinhart's collaboration with Arthur Yorinks and legendary illustrator Maurice Sendak (Scholastic, $24.95). Citing Sabuda and Reinhart as leaders of a new "golden age of the pop-up book," Garner marveled, "The engineered parts leap out at you with the impact, and nearly the size, of unfolding umbrellas." The magic begins in an unassuming seventh-floor studio on Manhattan's Upper West Side. A young Asian woman, whose bright smile gives the lie to her Goth-tinged attire, leads two guests down a bookshelf-lined hallway and into an alternate universe. Every inch of the narrow room bristles with clip lights, layered bulletin boards, drawing tables with mat boards, drafting templates, computer screens, Simpsons and Star Wars collectibles, hats (Krispy Kreme, crown, tiara) and an avalanche of paper. There are intricate pop-ups in progress on every desk, overflowing wire wastebaskets, piles of hand-painted papers in cardboard bins labeled by color. The effect is like walking into a huge pop-up, with fabulous details wherever you look: PeeWee's Playhouse goes to art school. "This is a neat day," Sabuda grins, stepping over a snowfall of scraps on the carpet. Reinhart sits at a computer, peering at digital photos of Skywalker Ranch, where the pair went to research their upcoming extravaganza, The Star Wars Holochron. "You just missed the Star Wars craze. Two weeks ago we were busting our behinds to get everything out on time," Sabuda explains. "Now everyone's hustling for Narnia." He picks up a folded white mock-up for another upcoming project, based on C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. "We expected a lot of input from the Lewis estate, but they were thrilled. All we got was, 'Could you just add teeth to Aslan?'" He turns a page. Even in unadorned white, the great lion bursts off the page, jaws gaping and claws outstretched. The manufacture of high-end pop-up books is a fortuitous melding of ultramodern computer technology and old-fashioned, cut-and-paste ingenuity. All paper engineering is done by hand, a laborious process involving hundreds of sheets of white cardstock, mat knives, glue, tape, and much trial and error. Sabuda observes, "It's not so much about getting it to pop up as getting it to pop shut. When you make an origami, you fold the paper into three dimensions and it's finished. We're creating figures that become 3-D, then have to go back into 2-D. That's the real challenge." The studio employs five fulltime assistants, all art school graduates. When Sabuda declares, "It's not necessary for us to physically make every aspect of every book—we have too many ideas," Reinhart intones in his best Alec Guinness vibrato, "I am the prime conceiver." The partners also function as executive producers, shepherding projects by staff members and other young artists: The tall, quiet man at the desk near the door is Castles author Kyle Olmon, whose virtuoso medieval pop-ups catapulted his book onto bestseller lists and into museum gift shops, alongside Sabuda and Reinhart's. The team may spend weeks engineering each page; finished books take anywhere from eight months to two years. Certain "pops" involve such extras as lightweight spinning dowels, fine-gauge string, clear plastic insets, even light chips for special effects. Durability counts: devotees may spend hours spinning the wrappings off Reinhart and Sendak's rotating mummy or pulling up Alice In Wonderland's spiral rabbit hole, and a ripped pop-up book is a pitiful thing. Sabuda favors a "look, don't touch" approach with very young readers, creating a more interactive experience as parents become puppeteers, turning pages and pulling tabs, making things pop.