PLANET EARTH

Flaps and cutouts add layers to this tour of our planet’s inside and outside.

Rendered in thick, geometric forms that often look piled up, the mountains, rivers, caves, coastlines, and seascapes already have a 3-D look, but actual cutouts that go part- or all the way through add a tactile dimension. Along with lifting flaps to expose added images and information on each topical spread, readers can feel as well as peer through gray cumulonimbus clouds to a dark tornado on the next page. They can also use their fingertips to follow an iceberg to the sea, trace a river’s meanders, or touch lava flowing down a volcanic slope. Aside from a debatable claim that wetlands are the most biologically diverse biome, the narrative, scattered into easily digestible blocks, offers a spare assortment of reasonably accurate if standard-issue facts and observations—mostly about tectonic features and phenomena, but with pauses to view rivers and caves, deserts, coasts, clouds, and storms. Most but not all of the small, rare human figures have pale skin.

A quick, lightweight tour with literal feels.