Review by Booklist Review
There are so many things with wings! Readers are treated to a series of rhyming riddles about various winged things and invited to hazard a guess as to what they might be. The playful text offers clever initial clues, and visual details provide additional hints and increasing close-ups before all is revealed ("They trill she didn't. Then she did. These wings are on a . . . katydid!"). There's an impressive amount of variety packed into the pages, from common insects and birds to more unusual wings on maple seeds and pterosaurs. The dreamy illustrations, gently rendered in textured gouache, watercolor, colored pencil, and soft pastels, feature a terrific assortment of habitats and times of day. The art is infused with warmth and detail that perfectly complements the playful tone and bouncing rhymes, and the combination is sure to make for a particularly pleasing read-aloud. Helpful end pages give a bit more scientific detail to round out the delightful proceedings. An exceptionally entertaining exploration of all winged things.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 4--A light observation of natural science, delving into just how many things have wings. It begins with a little whimsy as winged children prepare readers for the journey. It then zooms out, revealing nature scenes with fun rhyming clues about the mystery wing owner's traits, before zooming in and to spotlight whose wings they are. It's not limited to living creatures either, expanding understanding of what wings can be. Each description is intensely sensory, capturing the sound and feel of the bewinged objects. Hummingbirds thrum, katydids trill, all against lovely colored skies, lush gardens, and shadowy forests. Readers get immersed in the quiet world. The back matter expands the explanations, going over each winged thing and the physics of how their wings operate. VERDICT A creative and enlightening book.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Soaring rhymes celebrate wings of many sorts as an equally diverse cast of bright-eyed young children look on. "Small wings, big wings, near and far. / Can you guess whose wings these are?" Offering tantalizing hints about each example until a page turn reveals the answer, Hirsch writes of honeybees and katydids, hummingbirds and mallards--but also expands her topic well beyond bugs and birds to encompass winged things from maple seeds to pterosaurs and jet planes. As she explains in a substantial afterword, each uses wings in distinctive ways. Penguin chicks don't fly, for instance, but steer with their flippers as they toboggan down ice slopes on their bellies, and butterflies flap in a figure-eight pattern, clapping their wings to create a propulsive puff of air. Individual readers and listening audiences alike will come away understanding the structural differences between the wings of bats and birds, not to mention how lift can be created by both wing curvature and by the "tiny tornado" that forms over the flat surface of a maple "whirlybird." Han mixes brightly hued close-ups of flora and fauna with views of small children immersed in peaceful natural settings, being strapped into their seats, or, in one fetching scene, donning wings themselves to flit cheerily about. A nicely balanced combination of guessing game and scientific facts. (selected sources)(Informational picture book. 6-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
