Airplanes

Children's Literature

Hand-sized and modest, these squarish books feature wonderful short-captioned photos with detail enough to satisfy even the most picky looker. Text is short, and appears as paragraphs, longer picture captions, or sidebars of facts with subjects such as record-breakers, special names, terminology, historical bits, and dimensions. The Wright brothers and Lilienthal as well as many other inventors and pioneers are given mention here but the real emphasis is on machine overviews and fascinating facts. Domestic rather than military planes is the emphasis here with examples of how planes are used. The series has plenty of visual appeal for a wider age range than does the text that would challenge many third graders but work well for a less able middle school reader. A glossary and short index are included but the book's scattered organization poses a challenge for report writers without a clear sense of what they are after. That should not bother the airplane aficionado, however, who will pore over the pictures and recite interesting facts to anyone who will listen. "Let's Investigate Transportation" series. 2004, Creative Education, Ages 8 to 12.
— Susan Hepler, Ph.D.