We are regulars at the State Library of South Australia. Between the Art Gallery next door and the free kids’ corner inside, it has become one of our default rainy-day spots, the kind of place we turn up to without much of a plan. So when we wandered in last weekend and found the ground floor had been taken over by giant pop-up books, it felt like the library had been saving a surprise for us.
The exhibition is called Pull Pop Push, and it explores the art of movable books, the pop-ups, tunnels, flap-books and sound books that most of us only ever met as flat pictures on a shelf. Here, they have been blown up to human scale, and for a few hours our kids got to walk straight into the middle of one.
A Library Visit That Turned Into a Storybook
You know that feeling when a picture book character seems to lean right off the page towards you? That is basically what greets you at the entrance. A life-size recreation of Vojtěch Kubašta’s pop-up Noah’s Ark rises out of the floor, hull curved, animals spilling over the sides, a whole flood scene painted across the wall behind it. Giraffes stretch their necks above the mountains, flamingos wade through a painted lake, and somewhere in the chaos a very unimpressed panda is stuck in the hold with the elephants.
Our youngest walked around it three times before she noticed the “please don’t touch” sign, at which point there was a small negotiation about why a book you can climb inside is suddenly a look-only book. Fair complaint, honestly. It is such a tactile, inviting piece that it is easy to forget it is still an artwork, not a climbing frame.
Further into the gallery, the scale keeps shifting. There is a walk-through recreation of the Tunnel under the Thames, one of the earliest movable books ever made, and a wall dedicated to the history of paper engineering, tracing how these mechanisms went from scientific teaching tools in the 1700s to the pop-up birthday cards we all still fold and cut today. It is a genuinely interesting bit of design history dressed up as a kids’ exhibition, and my husband, who is not usually a museum person, spent longer reading the wall panels than the kids spent looking at the ark.
The originals themselves, delicate first editions from the State Library’s Children’s Literature Research Collection, sit safely behind glass a little further along. It is worth slowing down here even if the kids race past, because seeing the tiny, fragile paper mechanism next to its room-sized reconstruction is honestly the cleverest part of the whole exhibition.
The Free Craft Table Is the Real Win
If your kids are anything like mine, the highlight of any gallery trip is not the art, it is the craft table. Pull Pop Push has one tucked near the entrance, set up with simple instructions for making your own pop-up animal card, along with paper, scissors, glue sticks and pencils, all supplied free of charge. Our two settled in for a good half hour, cutting mouths into paper monkey and koala faces while we finally got to read a wall panel in peace.
There is no bookings needed for the craft table on a normal visit, and it restocks regularly, so do not stress if the first table looks a little picked over. The State Library also runs occasional ticketed workshops tied to the exhibition, including paper engineering sessions for slightly older kids, so it is worth checking their events page if you want something a bit more structured than a drop-in visit.
Good to Know Before You Go
Pull Pop Push runs in the Spence Wing on the ground floor, right next to the Art Gallery of South Australia, and it is on until 24 January 2027, so there is no rush to fit it in before a school term starts back. Entry is free and you do not need to book, you can just walk in during normal library hours.
Getting there without a car is easy enough. The tram stops right outside (look for the State Library, Art Gallery, Museum stop) and there are bus stops nearby on North Terrace near the War Memorial, plus Adelaide train station is a short walk away. If you are driving, Wilson’s car park on North Terrace next to David Jones is the closest option, though North Terrace does get busy on weekends so give yourself a few extra minutes to find a spot.
We grabbed a coffee at the State Library Cafe afterwards, which is open weekdays from 8am and Saturdays from 10am, both until 4pm. Worth knowing if you are planning a Sunday trip, since the cafe is closed that day, so pack a snack or plan to eat elsewhere.
Opening hours around public holidays can shift, so it is worth a quick check on the State Library’s own Pull Pop Push page before you head in, especially if you are travelling in from further out.
Making It a Whole Morning
We ended up turning it into a proper outing rather than a quick in-and-out. The Art Gallery is right next door, so we let the kids run through a couple of rooms there too, then walked down to the Botanic Garden afterwards so they could burn off the leftover muffin sugar. If you want more ideas for stringing a full day together in the city, we have rounded up other family-friendly museums and libraries for kids worth adding to the list.
It is also worth lining the visit up with the actual break rather than guessing, so check the SA school holidays and term dates for 2026 or the 2027 dates before you commit to anything. And if the weather turns and you need a backup plan for the rest of the holidays, our full things to do with kids list has plenty of other indoor options around the country.
We came away thinking it was worth the trip, and not just because it did not cost us anything. Our kids are not usually the type to slow down and read wall text at a gallery, but standing next to a book they could actually walk inside seemed to make the whole idea of storytelling click for them a bit differently. Watching our youngest work her way slowly around that ark, trying to figure out how it must once have folded flat into a normal-sized book, felt like the sort of moment that quietly nudges a reluctant reader back towards books.
So if you have a wet afternoon to fill these school holidays, or just want something free and different from the usual playground loop, it is worth the walk into the city. We are already talking about going back before it closes.