Nonfiction That Makes the Grade: How People Learned to Fly by Fran Hodgkins

In her new addition to HarperCollins' excellent Let's-Read-And-Find-Out series, titled How People Learned to Fly (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2) Fran Hodgkins deftly takes on the history and science of manned flight. Beginning with man's yearnings to soar with the birds, she covers our early dreams--from the mythology of Icarus through kites, gliders, and various flying machines--and then digs in to explain the scientific principles behind powered flight.

In simple explanations based on experiences common to all children, she describes the principles behind fluid dynamics to describe the effects of drag and lift which enabled the Wrights to initiate powered, controlled flight at last. Veteran illustrator True Kelley provides perfect simple and kid-friendly illustrations to make the Bernoulli principle comprehensible to elementary school students. A short appendix (Find Out More about Flying) offers Flying Facts, with famous feats in flight, and Flight School, with instructions for experiments with a simple paper airplane (diagram included).

Making the complex and still amazing act of powered flight seem accessible and appealing to kids as young as second grade is no easy task, but pros like Hodgkins and Kelley carry it off with the ease of a kite in the breeze.