LITTLE PLANE LEARNS TO WRITE

At flight school, Little Plane learns skywriting by practicing “arcs, dives, and loopity-loops.” But the last present a particular problem for him, as the circling maneuver makes him dizzy.

Little Plane avoids this by eliminating the O’s in words that include them. When his instructor reviews his work and sees the words “CL UDS” and “RAINB W,” the sleek gray plane questions Little Plane, “Where’s your loopity-loop?” Writing seems to be too hard for Little Plane. But at nighttime, Little Plane tries again, circling slowly and carefully around the moon and accomplishing this feat twice without getting dizzy, thus perfecting his loopity-loop and successfully completing his skywriting class. Two-dimensional digital art portrays simple, child-friendly aircraft with broad, round-edged lines and anthropomorphic features; their bold colors stand out over patchwork rural and blocky urban scenes against a varying cerulean sky. The uncluttered, clean layout perfectly accommodates the one-sentence-per-page dialogue-driven text. The book’s endpapers feature the alphabet in skywriting form and can double as a simple alphabet primer, while the theme of persistence to succeed will be encouraging for little ones with aspirations to get things right.

A well-designed winner for ambitious little pilots.