Air show a hit!

I took a bit of time off from delivering storytimes at the base library I was busy getting kids off to school and celebrating the Labor Day Holiday. Last week, storytime celebrated "Talk like a pirate day" and so we did a modified reprise of my pirate storytime which I covered previously. There were four little ones at that storytime and they all seemed to enjoy themselves. One even left wearing her pirate hat that was our craft.

Which brings us to this week. The base where I work is holding its annual air show this weekend, so the theme for this week's storytime was "Come Fly With Me" After all the songs and rhymes and stories, 12 small children decorated, folded and flew paper airplanes. It was great fun to see all these paper airplanes soaring around the children's room! This particular group doesn't seem to enjoy songs as much as action rhymes and fingerplays (they loved to "be" planes and they make airplane noises with great glee and gusto!) So, here are the books:

Air Show! by Treat Williams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This oversized book is filled with bright, busy pictures of airplanes - including a stunt plane that future pilot, Ellie, enjoys. Although I worried that all the jargon in this book - the characters go through a pre-flight check with workds like "avionics" and "directional gyro" - would be beyond most 2 year olds, they really enjoyed this book. There are large colorful pictures, which help and lots of planes to count (which we did). Using a funny "radio" voice helped too, I suppose. Ellie's ride in the stunt plane is very cleverly laid out and illustrated. The kids eyes got big and there were some giggles. All in all a very successful storytime read.


Airplanes!: Soaring! Diving! Turning! by Patricia Hubbell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Simple rhyming text and wonderfully imaginative pictures make this a storytime winner. All the planes "in the big wide sky" are represented and the pages where you have to turn the book just add more interest. Be sure to look carefully at the illustrations they contain tons of humorous detail (like the hydroplane labeled "school but dropping little fish off at school or the buffalo sitting on a passenger plane beside the other passengers). Great fun!



Moon Plane by Peter McCarty

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


With beautiful, muted illustrations, this book starts out with a small boy looking up at an airplane in the sky...and we follow that boy as he imagines that plane flying him to the moon and back. Simple text helps take even the smallest reader up in that plane and all the way to the moon.


A Plane Goes Ka-Zoom! by Jonathan London

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Great book to end with. The simple rhyming text and brightly painted, kid-like illustrations are eye catching and easy for even a very young reader to follow. This books talks about all the things planes can do and be. We had fun counting planes and naming colors and enjoying the rhythm and the rhyme of this book.

Next week, we slither, crawl and hiss as we read stories about our friends, the reptiles!