Take Off! Aerospace Engineering (Baby Loves) by Ruth Spiro

HOW DO BIRDS FLY?

Tiny tots notice right away that birds do something special, doubtlessly asking the same question that little Leonardo da Vinci must have asked. How DO birds stay up and travel through the air? And the natural follow-up query.... Can I DO that?

Taking advantage of that wonder, Ruth Spiro's Baby Loves Aerospace Engineering! (Baby Loves Science) helps the very young let their curiosity carry them far, describing how the aerodynamic shape of the bird's wings allows air to move more slowly above her curved wing than below, providing lift.

Then the curious kid wonders if the same is true for airplane wings.

DOES AN AIRPLANE FLAP ITS WINGS?

Spiro explains that airplanes need engines to provide speed so that the shape of their wings, like the bird's, allow them to ride the air above the earth. With an accompanying drawing, the effect of lift is explained. But how about higher above the earth? How can a bird fly into space? Her wings won't do it!

SORRY, BIRD!

That takes a rocket with a large engine that makes hot gas to provide the thrust to take bird (and people) into space.

Spiro's Baby Loves book is planned to pique the interest of the youngest in the basics of flight, with a trajectory from the toddler's ground level into outer space. It's the Bernoulli effect and Newton's laws of motion in a suitably simplified nutshell. With engaging but simple illustrations by Irene Chan, this tot-friendly little board book encourages the natural curiosity of the toddler to lift off into the scientific side of the natural world all around.