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This term tends to be used nowadays to describe any dimensional or interactive book but it was originally used by an American publisher to describe effects that fold out as fully three-dimensional models that, once the pages are opened, can be viewed from any angle.

The origami-like technique was first used in 1929 when London inventor Theodore Brown teamed up with a publisher, S Louis Giraud, to produce the first Daily Express Children's Annual as a promotional novelty for a British mass circulation newspaper. The book contained stories, comic strips, rhymes, puzzles, games plus seven ingenious 'self erecting living models' to illustrate the text. This proved such a success that four further annuals were published along similar lines before Giraud went independent with his Bookano series, continuing to produce many annual and special edition pop-ups until 1950.

Although the Brown/Giraud 'living models' were patented internationally, they were copied by others - particularly by illustrator Harold Lenz for Blue Ribbon Books in America. A number of attractive 3D children's books were published by this firm in the 1930s - it is claimed that Blue Ribbon was the first to use the term 'pop-up' to describe them. Illustrated below is Lenz's 'Pinocchio' (1932) which includes four fold-out models of which the last is shown:

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