Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In this uniquely told story, words and illustrations provide clues to help readers piece together a plan as it transforms from a young girl's fantasy into a fantastic shared flight. May and her dog want to travel to Saturn by restoring a biplane that sits idle on May's father's farm. May's plan inspires her father, a former aviator, to dig into the past and come up with an alternative idea for a journey, resulting in a more realistic but nevertheless magnificent flight. The somewhat complex story is brilliantly conveyed through 20 simple, well-chosen words and beautifully rendered illustrations. The text is suggestive of a word game: all 20 start with the letter p, some are homophones, and others reuse many of the same sounds, shifting one letter at a time (plan, plane, plain, etc.) to create an exceedingly imaginative story. Lehman's trademark clear and uncluttered illustrations, including creative text placement, carry the bulk of the story and perfectly match the spare wording. Subtle details facial expressions, body language, and clues in the setting provide an unexpected emotional depth and clue discerning readers into the sadder background of the story. Ultimately, hearts will soar with the characters as they fly away in their lovingly restored plane.--Enos, Randall Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Paul (Sunday Love) uses clever wordplay for the text of her story, starting with the word "plan," then adding or subtracting a single letter to create each subsequent word: "plan... plane... planet." The plot is complex, but easy to follow in Caldecott Honor-winner Lehman's (The Red Book) neatly drafted panels. A farm girl in overalls, wondering about the plane sitting unused in her yard, uses a key to open a room full of memories. Her parents were once stunt pilots, she discovers in a scrapbook album. The photos prove an inspiration; the father realizes that his daughter is old enough to fly with him, and they ready their plane so they can set off into the sky-probably not to Saturn, the "planet" of the girl's "plan," but as close as they can get. The presence of the family dog (something of an aviator, himself) brings additional sweetness, while a panel of father and daughter visiting her mother's grave strikes a somber note. This lovely story blends a sense of rootedness with the spirit of exploration-a rare combination. Ages 4-7. Author's agent: Judy Sue Goodwin Sturges, Studio Goodwin Sturges. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Using only 10 letters to make 20 words, Paul provides the scaffold on which Lehman builds a story. Paul's word ladder, in which letters are added or subtracted from one page to the next: "pals/ Pa's/past/post" are fun, but it's Lehman's watercolors that form a narrative. Her firmly lined pen-and-ink drawings are easily interpreted as they depict a little girl who longs to fly the abandoned bi-plane sitting on her family farm and the way she persuades her widowed father to take to the air again. Readers may feel left hanging by the unexplained backstory. Viewers see father and daughter visiting her mother's grave, but have no idea how she perished. VERDICT It's all a bit sketchy.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Library, NY © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In just twenty words and a set of artfully plain pictures, Paul and Lehman reveal a sweet, multilayered story of family loss and closeness. May Swift lives with her father and (anthropomorphized) dog on a prairie farm sometime in the 1920s. May dreams of flying to Saturn, but the biplane in their farmyard sits abandoned, inhabited by chickens. When May finds an old photo album, she discovers that her mother was a barnstormer pilot and persuades her father that the plane, the Mighty Comet, should fly again. In the final illustration we see the family flying off into the nightperhaps not to Saturn, but they do have a lot of luggage. This narrative is given the added dimension of a word morph game, where each word leads to the next with the addition or deletion of one letter, plan to plane to planet, eventually coming full circle back to plan. The deeper story lies in the spaces between the words, especially in the five wordless pictures that lead from pain to plain. Did Mays mother die in an airplane accident? Childbirth? Is the family leaving home for good? The emotions are clear; the story itself leaves us room to speculate. sarah ellis (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A child's desire to fly to space turns into a transformative project with her father. On the title page a girl sits by a mailbox at the edge of a farm, chin resting in hands, a dog by her side. An old biplane by the chicken coop is partly covered in vines. Lehman's illustrations, outlined in pen and colored with watercolor and gouache, have a simple, graphic-novel feel. A Curtis Jenny stamp, a fragment of an encyclopedia, and the girl's drawings tell the story of her plan: to fly to Saturn. The story is nearly wordless, with a single changing word appearing in bold text on some pages: plan becomes plane, then plane becomes planet as the girl demonstrates to her dog, with toys, how they might travel. She finds a key that is Pa'sand a look through a photo album becomes a discovery of a barnstorming poster in the attic: past. The 20 words help to ground the story as it unfolds, telling why the plane sits in the weeds, who flew it before, how it will get back into the air. They offer listeners and beginning readers a way to understand and participate in the narrative arc. Finally, girl, father, and dog come round to "plan" againaccomplished at last as they fly home from a picnic under a starry sky. Warmhearted and joyful. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
