How People Learned to Fly: A STEM Picture Book About Flight Experiments and Inventors for Kids (Ages 4-8)

Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 2

by Fran Hodgkins, True Kelley (Illustrator)

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 Top 10 reasons to love 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.

Genres: Science, History, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Childrens, 1st Grade

40 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2007

About the author

Fran Hodgkins always loved nature and science, and loved writing as well, so it seemed only logical that she would grow up to write about science and nature for children. Her first book, The Orphan Seal, received the Henry Bergh Children's Book Award from the ASPCA. Her book How People Learned to Fly is an exemplar in the Common Core ELA standards.

Fran has written more than 20 books for young readers. Her most recent, The Secret Galaxy, came out in October 2014 from Tilbury House Publishers.

Fran lives in Midcoast Maine.

Reviews

[Carley Moisio]

This book talks about the beginning trials of learning to fly and why people and things cannot fly. It talks about gravity and air flow and how certain wings create lift. It also explains how the Wright Brothers created the first airplane.
I would use this in my classroom for a science lesson and then have students try and build something that will fly out of paper and other materials.

[Rose Rosetree]

How did human beings learn how to fly? This is a simple history of aviation through the ages. This Goodreader is pleased to report, this book is unpretentious, which is a refreshing change from some other books I've read, books intended to teach science to early readers.

All the history here is accompanied by colorful illustrations, upbeat and cheerful. Like that, the text gives a simple version of aviation history. And thank you, author Fran Hodgkins: There are no baby book rhymes.

Readers learn historical facts like these:

* Back in the day some inventors built wings for their arms and flapped them like birds.
* Some invented attempted to fly with balloons,
* Others glided in the wind. Nice try, folks!

I LIKE THE WRITING A LOT

Here's a sample:

Kites were useful and fun, but people
wanted more.
They wanted to fly like birds.

Birds had something that kids didn't.
Birds had wings.

FIVE STARS, richly deserved for this book.

[Sarah Nelson]

This playful history of flight travels through time, from ancient fascinations with flying to early contraptions and risky (mostly-failed) attempts to the first successful gliders and planes. Throughout, children learn, as the inventors did, about concepts like gravity, air flow, lift, and draft.

[Elizabeth]

AR 3.8

[Suzie]

Simple yet interesting book about how flying works.

[Natalie]

Nice introduction to how things fly.

[Lizzie]

Pretty straightforward informational text. Wished it could have included helicopters.

[Beyond the Pages with Eva K]

As a stage 2 reader, this book was appropriate. It introduced the basics and contained some helpful facts. I could definitely see this book as an intro for younger kids as part of a thematic study.

[Yahira Romero]

I did not really enjoy this book. The book doesn't have a story line to it. The book does contain valuable information that children would love to read and learn about.

[♡ Carla]

Great book!