A PLANE GOES KA-ZOOM!

London’s rhymed text is easy to follow, easy to read and, importantly, easy to engage; like the subject, it lifts young readers and carries them off. “A plane could fly fast. / A plane could fly slow. / A plane could fly high… / …or very, very low,” as a barnstormer swoops through a barn, rattling everything in its wake—ka-ZOOM! It is all quite simple here: Planes come in different colors, sizes, shapes; they do different things (“A plane carries people. / A plane carries pets. / A plane carries trucks. / A plane carries jets”), make different sounds, like zippety-zooma and va-ROOM, and they can land on snow and water as well as at the airport. The author keeps the pacing brisk and the language both descriptive and tuneful. Roche squarely nails the brightly lit artwork by getting the tilts and angles of the planes just right, whether lifting off or sitting on the ground, while retaining childlike qualities—the energy, the sense of lived fantasy—that befits a place on the refrigerator door. A deft weave of word and image. (Picture book. 2-5)