For all its fine lines and whispery color by newcomer Mariniello, this appreciation of airplanes suffers from a crippling split personality. The couplets that ferry it along are extremely simple: “White clouds, blue sky— / Up above . . . Eagles fly.” Each of the 13 planes introduced here, from the Sopwith Camel to the F-18 Hornet, get this kind of roly-poly verse—“Hawks soar . . . Tigers roar . . . Cougars howl . . . Panthers prowl”—only to have engineering drawings of a plane by the same name as the animal or insect often take a whole page right alongside the paintings of the planes slicing through the air. A full half of the book will be of little interest, if not active distaste, by whatever age group is reading it: Older kids will resent the infantile poetry, while younger kids will be flummoxed by the detailed drawings and by the statistics at the end (Hawk 75A, wingspan of 37 feet 4 inches, and so on). Any way you cut it, too little or too much sends this effort into a tailspin for all but the most rabid, very young plane fanatic. (Picture book. 4-7)
