Sam Ita studied graphic design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn before following his passion for paper engineering. He got his start as a production assistant for renowned paper engineers Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart, and worked on many bestselling pop-up books, including America the Beautiful and Encyclopedia Prehistorica, and on Christmas cards for the Museum of Modern Art. Ita draws inspiration from comics, origami and machines, applying his craft to publishing, advertising, animation, display and toy design. His creations include Christmas Tree In-a-Box, Van Gogh's Sunflowers In-a-Box, The Odyssey, Moby Dick, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Frankenstein and the Tokyo Pop-Up Book. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Praise for Tokyo Pop-Up Book by Sam Ita: ""Yet again, Sam Ita takes the pop-up book genre to a new dimension! His skillful blend of graphic story-telling and paper engineering makes Tokyo Pop-Up Book his most innovative and playful book yet."" --Matthew Reinhart, author of Cinderella: A Pop-Up Fairy Tale and Star Wars: A Galactic Pop-Up Adventure ""…the coolest book ever…Each full-page spread that follows shows a typical scene from Tokyo…from bright lights, to temples, a sumo match, train station, onsen, and more…Sam Ita has done a very good job with the Tokyo Pop-Up Book, indeed, he is a paper engineer to design all the details and have so many pop-up elements on each page that truly shows Tokyo at its finest."" --Castle View Academy blog ""If you enjoy pop-up books, you will love the scenes in this book. I was very impressed with the details and the vibrant scenes on each page. Plus, there are so many things to see throughout the book that it really is so much more than a book to read."" --In Our Spare Time blog ""The majority of the pages are edge-to-edge, filled with art, pop-ups, and Neko the Cat. It is fun to keep up with the adventure and sit here looking at the pop-ups to see what is happening in the scene taking place."" --TheDailyFandom.com