AIRPORTS

Making sure air travel functions smoothly is a big job—here’s how it’s done.

Similar in concept and in graphic style to Lonely Planet’s How Airports Work (2018), this book is aimed at a slightly older audience: twice the pages here, with no flaps to lift. Nine concise chapters that offer a tour of security checkpoints, the cockpit, the control tower, and more are framed as responses to questions—all audience-appropriate and many amusing, like “Can a Body Scanner See Me Naked?” Questions within chapters (“What if I Leave My Bag Behind?” “Can I Take Snakes on a Plane?”) generate brief and reassuring answers. Tiny but clear depictions of vehicles and objects are informatively labeled, alternating aerial views with focused vignettes. Spreads crammed with details have a Richard Scarry or Where’s Waldo vibe. Though the book doesn’t say much about the role of flight attendants, other occupations are covered, from engineers and aircraft marshalers to pilots and air traffic controllers. Fascinating facts are interspersed: Planes don’t have a reverse gear; a child and a raccoon each needed rescue from mazelike luggage carousels at airports in, respectively, Atlanta and Philadelphia; and alligators, hares, seagulls, deer, and turtles are among the animals that have had to be removed from runways. People depicted are diverse.

Just the ticket for transportation mavens and anyone interested in—or apprehensive about—flying.