Skywriting: Poems to Fly

by J. Patrick Lewis, Laszlo Kubinyi (Illustrator)

Overview

Ever since people have walked, they have dreamed of flying. Prepare to soar in this poetic celebration of dizzying heights and human innovation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781568462035
Publisher:	The Creative Company
Publication date:	09/01/2010
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

Editorial Reviews

Tracing the history of flight, this collection of poems celebrates the daring dreams of humans, from Icarus's doomed journey ("Tracing an angel's tracks,/ he rose on wings of wax") to modern space shuttles. Hot-air balloons, blimps, and rockets are featured in order of their creation, with failures (such as the Minerva and Ornithopter) portrayed as often as successes (zeppelins, the Wright Brothers' Flyer, and the Concorde). Kubinyi's precise linework and sense of movement are well-matched to the mechanical subject matter and capture the spirit of flight across the ages; endnotes and a time line offer background information. Ages 10-up. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 4–6—Thirteen poems celebrate innovations in flight, soaring chronologically from Icarus to the space shuttle Columbia. Not all of the airborne contraptions were successful, as in the humorous poem "Marquis d'Equevilley's Multiplane"; with an oval shape, "It was not bound/Ever to get off/the ground!" All but one of the poems rhyme, including the shape poem, "The Concorde 001." The free verse "LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin" sounds more textbook than poetic. Detailed pen-and-ink illustrations with pastel watercolors highlighting the colors of the sky, pilots, and hopeful crowds convey the excitement and wonder humans have experienced in the pursuit of flight. Endnotes offer a paragraph of introductory information about each attempt. A time line with one notable fact from each of the 13 years marked by these forms of flight, from 800 BC to AD 2002, is included. Lee Bennett Hopkins's Give Me Wings (Holiday House, 2010), which also features 13 poems about flight, is for a slightly younger audience.—Julie R. Ranelli, Queen Anne's County Free Library, Stevensville, MD

School Library Journal

Thirteen buoyant poems highlight famous and infamous attempts to fly, starting with Icarus's misguided efforts to rise "on wings of wax" in 800 BCE and ending in 2002 with that "behemoth of adventure" and "front-row ticket to celestial theater in the round," Space Shuttle Columbia. Lighthearted, imagery-packed verses pay tribute to the Montgolfiers' first hot-air balloon rising "[m]errily aerially," above Paris, the Wright brothers' "legendary trail" over Kitty Hawk, the Graf Zeppelin circumnavigating the globe "[b]eyond the minor turbulence of dreams," the sleek Concorde "flying twice the speed of sound" (a concrete poem) and the Lockheed Nighthawk, a "radar evader" and "metal Darth Vader." Lewis humorously intersperses more imaginative, but doomed, approaches, including the equestrian balloon, the whimsical flying ship, the bird-winged Ornithopter, the oval Multiplane, the short-lived Airgeep and the jet-powered rocket-belt. Kubinyi's realistic, detailed pen, ink and watercolor illustrations celebrate the highs and lows of these celestial flights of fancy and reality. A lively, lyrical introduction to some of aviation's more memorable milestones. (endnotes & timeline) (Poetry. 10 & up)

Kirkus Reviews