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HOW PEOPLE LEARNED TO FLY

Name: HOW PEOPLE LEARNED TO FLY
Author: Fran Hodgkins
ISBN: 978-0-06-029558-5

by Fran Hodgkins & illustrated by Y Kelley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2007

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Hodgkins’s entry in the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series draws a visual timeline from centuries back, when humans’ dreams of flying evolved into reality. The succinct, simplified text cites human efforts to fly like birds and describes the aeronautical physics of gliding using drag force, thrust and lift. Kelley’s breezy illustrations convey a buoyant tone and keep the explanations understandable for curious young minds. Two pages of backmatter provide “Flying Facts” and instructions for making a paper airplane. Lightly touching on everything from the days of imagining the winged Icarus and dreaming of wings to today’s nonchalance about air travel, this is a welcome addition to easy science books about humans and flight. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-9)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-06-029558-5

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Collins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2007

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION

- BOOK REVIEW
IN A PATCH OF GRASS
by Fran Hodgkins ; illustrated by Dan Tavis

- BOOK REVIEW
A Raccoon's Tale
by Fran Hodgkins illustrated by Donnachada Daly

- BOOK REVIEW
WHO’S BEEN HERE?
by Fran Hodgkins & illustrated by Karel Hayes

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TINY LITTLE ROCKET

by Richard Collingridge ; illustrated by Richard Collingridge ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 31, 2018

A fair choice, but it may need some support to really blast off.

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This rocket hopes to take its readers on a birthday blast—but there may or may not be enough fuel.

Once a year, a one-seat rocket shoots out from Earth. Why? To reveal a special congratulatory banner for a once-a-year event. The second-person narration puts readers in the pilot’s seat and, through a (mostly) ballad-stanza rhyme scheme (abcb), sends them on a journey toward the sun, past meteors, and into the Kuiper belt. The final pages include additional information on how birthdays are measured against the Earth’s rotations around the sun. Collingridge aims for the stars with this title, and he mostly succeeds. The rhyme scheme flows smoothly, which will make listeners happy, but the illustrations (possibly a combination of paint with digital enhancements) may leave the viewers feeling a little cold. The pilot is seen only with a 1960s-style fishbowl helmet that completely obscures the face, gender, and race by reflecting the interior of the rocket ship. This may allow readers/listeners to picture themselves in the role, but it also may divest them of any emotional connection to the story. The last pages—the backside of a triple-gatefold spread—label the planets and include Pluto. While Pluto is correctly labeled as a dwarf planet, it’s an unusual choice to include it but not the other dwarfs: Ceres, Eris, etc. The illustration also neglects to include the asteroid belt or any of the solar system’s moons.

A fair choice, but it may need some support to really blast off. (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: July 31, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-338-18949-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: David Fickling/Phoenix/Scholastic

Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION

- BOOK REVIEW
LIONHEART
by Richard Collingridge ; illustrated by Richard Collingridge

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TWENTY-ONE ELEPHANTS AND STILL STANDING

by April Jones Prince & illustrated by François Roca ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2005

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Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)