When
I was a child I had a favorite book called
Airborne Animals and How They Fly, which fascinated
me. There was some rather complex stuff in it, however, which
was hard to understand, and I wished that there were some
practical experiments to try as this would have helped a lot.
That book might have failed to deliver, but this book delivers
so in spades if it is flight you want to experience in action.
Inside it are twenty models to cut out and construct, then
you get to see them in action.
Before
you get to the making part, the first half of the book contains
facts about flight. It also tells you what you will need to
make the models (all basic office supplies any home should
possess), and at the front is a page telling in very simple
terms what flight actually is. Beyond this, each page is packed
with information in easy to read print and short paragraphs,
plus black and white line drawings that you could color in
if you wanted to get even more out of the book. The models
themselves are all printed in color, which makes them look
professional and means that you can cross art materials off
the list. I would have liked to have seen some plain models,
particularly if they were of something where color was a matter
of choice, but you can’t please everybody.
The
text takes you from the earliest forms of flight, such as
giant dragonfly Meganeura and Archaeopteryx, to modern birds,
gliders like conuras and flying foxes, and seeds that use
flight to disperse. Human flight runs from the legendary Icarus
and Chinese kites through to da Vinci, early “bird men”,
and more recent pioneers such as the Wright brothers, Bleriot
and Concorde. Blasting into the modern age, the book takes
a look at rockets and ponders on how fiction is becoming fact
with jet packs and flying cars.
It
is easy to read and understand for a tweener, and the same
goes for the model instructions. These need to be cut out
rather than pressed out and will give the child a chance to
quit the virtual world for the actual one of scissors, glue
and paperclips. As these skills often get overlooked, there
is more education in here than just science. Each model is
printed in color on both sides of the page and there are staged
diagrams (also in color) showing how to make it up and even
how to make it fly. As you require so little to get the maximum
out of this book (you can fit it all into a pencil case),
it is ideal for taking on vacation and delving into when the
weather takes its own nosedive. Highly recommended.
|