Flying Firefighters

School Library Journal

Gr 2-4-An exciting, action-packed portrayal of helicopter and sky-diving firefighters. Men and women members of a helitack crew are shown fighting a forest fire from beginning to end with an explanation of the equipment that they use. The easy-to-read text is filled with descriptive phrases of the helicopter sounds, fire conditions, and dialogue. A page of facts on forest fires is appended. Flying Firefighters is better than Carol Greene's I Can Be a Forest Ranger (Childrens, 1989), which is illustrated with photographs of the equipment. It also gives more information than Robert Ekey's Fire! In Yellowstone (Gareth Stevens, 1989). Anna Hines's watercolor paintings follow the action, but the characters appear stilted or almost frozen at times. They stay remarkably clean throughout the fire, also reducing credibility. Nonetheless, this is a useful, up-to-date treatment of a popular subject.-Susannah Price, Boise Public Library, ID

Hazel Rochman

A "helitack" crew is summoned by radio to fight a forest fire: The present-tense drama of this picture book will hold children with its fast-paced action and exciting facts. In a long note at the end, Hines talks about forest fires in general, including how they start and whether they should ever be allowed to burn and take their course. But the story, with terse words and lively double-page-spread watercolors, has the immediacy of a single incident. Once they hear the radio dispatch, the crew spring into their fire-fighting clothes and take off in the helicopter with rotors turning and giant blades chopping the air. They sight the smoke and find the source of the fire. They work to control it from the ground and with huge buckets of water from the air until the ground crew gets there and the helitack crew can finally rest. Kids will enjoy the account of brave people at work and imagine themselves there: "Copter Five-One-Seven . . . Reported fire . . . Please respond."