How People Learned to Fly

by Fran Hodgkins, True Kelley (Illustrator)

Overview

Read and find out about flying before the airplane in this colorfully illustrated nonfiction picture book.

People have taken dangerous risks trying to fly. Some inventors built wings for their arms and flapped them like birds. Others tried to fly with balloons or tried to glide with the wind. This book describes the creative, fascinating, and wacky experiments that people tried before the airplane was invented.

This is a clear and appealing science book for early elementary age kids, both at home and in the classroom. It's a Level 2 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out, which means the book explores more challenging concepts for children in the primary grades. The 100+ titles in this leading nonfiction series are:

• hands-on and visual
• acclaimed and trusted
• great for classrooms

Top 10 reasons to love LRFOs:

• Entertain and educate at the same time
• Have appealing, child-centered topics
• Developmentally appropriate for emerging readers
• Focused; answering questions instead of using survey approach
• Employ engaging picture book quality illustrations
• Use simple charts and graphics to improve visual literacy skills
• Feature hands-on activities to engage young scientists
• Meet national science education standards
• Written/illustrated by award-winning authors/illustrators & vetted by an expert in the field
• Over 130 titles in print, meeting a wide range of kids' scientific interests

Books in this series support the Common Core Learning Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) standards. Let's-Read-and-Find-Out is the winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Outstanding Science Series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780064452212
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/16/2007
Series:	Let's Read and Find Out Science Series: Level 2
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	517,621
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.00(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Fran Hodgkins is the author of The Orphan Seal, winner of the Henry Bergh Children's Book Award, presented by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This is Fran Hodgkins's first Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science book. She lives in Maryland.

True Kelley has illustrated many favorite books for children in her fun-filled watercolor style, including several in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series. She and the author previously collaborated on What Makes a Magnet? and What the Moon is Like?

True Kelley lives in Warner, New Hampshire.

Editorial Reviews

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)

Kirkus Reviews