Planes
Planes
What is an airplane? An airplane is a flying machine with fixed wings. An airplane is powered by propellers or jet engines. There are many types of airplanes, big and small. Planes are heavier than air, but they stay aloft because of the air pushing underneath their wings.
The Super Explorers are caped superheroes who teach young readers about mega machines such as planes and ships and boats. They appear on every page, narrating facts about the machines and naming parts and describing what the machines can do. After a general definition of the plane and a ship and a boat, the two-page sections in each book get more specific in detailing different kinds of machines. In Ships & Boats, there are pages about small boats, like dinghies and rowboats, and large boats such as ferries and bulk carriers. In Planes, there is information about shuttle carrier aircraft, stealth aircraft, and bi-planes and tri-planes. Every page of both books contains colour, glossy photographs of the machines. The names of the machines appear in red lettering, and additional facts about the boats, ships, and planes appear in sidebars.
While reading these books, young readers will learn about famous people associated with certain machines throughout history and see how the machines are being used in present day time. Because the books lack a table of contents and an index, children looking for a topic will have to flip through the whole book to see if it’s included or not. But with the books having a layout like the Ripley’s Believe It or Not or the Guinness World Record books, children will find this pair of books easy to read and appealing to study.
Tanya Boudreau is a librarian at the Cold Lake Public Library in Cold Lake, Alberta.