From School Library Journal
Starred Review. PreSchool-K–This gentle bedtime story begins when a small boy sees a prop plane in the sky and imagines riding in it–first gliding over a car, then soaring past a train. His flight of imagination takes him beyond the ocean and into outer space, where he lands on the moon, takes a few steps on its surface, jumps, and flies just like the airplane. At last he returns home to his mother, who tucks him into bed to dream of airplanes. A prop plane is just the right technology for this subdued tale, and the monochromatic pencil-on-watercolor-paper illustrations create the atmosphere of a silent movie. This quiet mood encourages readers to listen for the hum of the engine and the whisper of the wind. The books sensual qualities will entrance youngsters, and the soothing text and soft artwork create the comfort and reassurance that children need at bedtime. A must-buy.
–Carolyn Janssen, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, OH Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
*Starred Review* A small boy stands in a field of tall grass. Looking up at an airplane flying through the sky, he imagines what it would be like on that flight--to fly faster than a car can go, to soar past a train, to burst into space. He imagines stepping off the plane onto the surface of the moon, where, when he jumps, his weightlessness will make him fly. But soon he must bring himself back to the plane, back to Earth, where his mother is waiting for him. The simple text (with its ending a gentle reminder of Sendak's
Where the Wild Things Are) appears one brief line to a page. Though this idea (and it's more an idea than a story) will catch kids' imagination, it is only when combined with McCarty's art that it soars. Using pencils, McCarty creates soft-edged, silver-tone artwork notable for its elegant simplicity. Yet this is undoubtedly child-friendly. The train, the plane, and even the surface of the moon have a solidity that will make children want to reach out and touch, even as the pictures' dreamy softness will move kids to a space inside themselves. McCarty catches both the way children's imaginations work and the connections they make.
Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
