Susanna Leonard Hill

In the cockpit Captain Bright
makes sure everything works right.
Wing flaps open, wing flaps close.
Lights shine bright on tail and nose.

Susanna Leonard Hill's rhythmic text and Ana Martin Larranaga's simple but enticing art will take young readers on an exciting airplane ride! Kids can lift the10 flaps throughout the book to make their flying and reading experience more fun! Fasten your seatbelt and fly above the sky with this interactive book that's shaped like an airplane. This format is perfect for young children who are going on a plane for the first to one-hundredth time!

The title pretty much says it all. This sculpted-edge board book follows its little travelers from pre-takeoff preparations in the cockpit with Captain Bright and Copilot Snow to a safe touchdown at their destination airport. Along the way, toddlers can watch the ground crew do its work and, once airborne, learn how the captain detours around a threatening storm. The flaps are absolutely basic paper engineering. Rather than hide surprises, they tend to reemphasize visual cues, such as when the wing flaps open, the resting birds are frightened away, or the nose running light changes from white to yellow. The crew and passengers are all a politically correct mixture of colors and genders, although the female co-pilot does tend to kowtow to her male captain. Still, the softly rounded forms of Larranaga's tubby little plane and people are comforting, and Hill's rhymed text suitably moves the aircraft forward. What matter that its "big jet engines roar with power," while its snub nose leads, propeller first? Prop planes always were more loveable. Reviewer: Kathleen Karr

Books to Borrow, Books to Buy - Interactive Books Are For Little Hands by Kendal Rautzhan
February 28, 2010

All children are captivated by interactive books - books with pop-up illustrations, flaps to lift, textures to touch and so on. In selecting interactive books for children under the age of 4, it's important to keep in mind that this young age group is generally not equipped to gingerly handle delicate, complicated pop-up books. Curiosity will reign supreme in trying to "see" how that picture jumped off the page and became a three-dimensional design. Add to that the temptation to touch the 3-D picture for further investigation, and the result is usually not what you had hoped for when you plunked down your hard-earned money to buy the book. And let's face it - once a pop-up picture is destroyed, some of the magic of the book is compromised.

Use common sense when purchasing interactive books for young children. Just because a publisher lists an interactive book (especially a pop-up book) as appropriate for age 2 or 3 and older doesn't mean that it is a good idea for a child so young. What was a moment's delight can quickly diminish into disappointment for you and the child. Not so with the books reviewed below - all are good examples of sturdy interactive books that are fairly child-proof, and that spells stress-free reading fun.

"Airplane Flight! A Lift-the-Flap Adventure" by Susanna Leonard Hill, illustrated by Ana Martin Larranaga, Little Simon, 2009, 12 pages, $7.99 board book.

Read aloud: age 2 - 3.

Read yourself: age 7.

It's time to take a ride in an airplane. With Captain Bright and Copilot Snow, passengers are in good hands for a safe flight. When the plane is headed for bad weather, Captain Bright knows just what to do - fly the airplane around the storm to land at their destination safely.

With flaps to lift that add excitement to this airplane adventure, little children will love going along for the ride in this engaging book.

Nationally syndicated, Kendal Rautzhan writes and lectures on children's literature. Contact her at kendal@​sunlink.net.