Praise for Look Up High! Things That Fly
2024 ALSC Summer Reading List Selection
49th Shelf Fall 2023 “Most Anticipated Books for Young Readers” Selection
2023 Children’s Book Council “August Hot Off the Press” Feature
“A strong addition to any library serving toddlers, but could also be used to support early readers in learning basic grammatical ideas.”—School Library Journal
“An invitation to fledgling readers to admire various types of flying craft (while practicing their prepositions)….well designed to put wind beneath the wings of children working to get their minds around language and parts of speech. A short flight, soon past—but with plenty of lift.”—Kirkus Reviews
“The rhyming text makes it easy to follow along with the book, while allowing young readers to memorize some of the text….Great for any early learning library whether preschool, kindergarten or early elementary…. Highly recommend it!”—CLCD – Children’s Literature
“I hope you have room on your shelf for this one. Look Up High! Things That Fly has beautiful colour photos…The rhymes are repetitive, changing only the name of the thing that flies. Soon young readers or listeners will be able to fill in the name of the flying thing and join in the rhyme…Highly Recommended.”—CM Review
“Combines young children’s fascination with aircraft with learning prepositions….discussing objects in relation to something else was one of the most difficult things I worked with preschoolers to understand, so I love this book and wish I had found it sooner!”—YA Books Central
“The photographs and repetitive words encourage language learning….Well-chosen verbs followed by meaningful prepositions create an easy lesson for little ones.”—Sal's Fiction Addiction
“In this padded board book, toddlers can look up into the sky to discover airships….I like that there were more air vehicles than an airplane.”—BookTime
11/24/2023
PreS-Gr 1—A new entry in the "Big, Little Concept Books" series that is suited for preschoolers and very early readers. Each thing that flies—a plane, a helicopter, an airship, and more—is presented with a bright photograph showing it in action. The simple text is repetitive and rhyming while posing the questions "How?" and "Where?" so that the name of the flying machine and its location helps promote the use of prepositions. By placing the prepositions in bold and matching it with a photograph that takes up most of the page spread, the book highlights the new terms in a developmentally appropriate way. An inclusive range of people are included in the bright and simple photographs, while the use of bold and colored text emphasizes important words. The additions of the instructional material aimed at parents and readers at the end extend the experience of the book while adding other common prepositions that could be acted out. A handy parental guide on the back cover also shows the important skills implemented by using the book. VERDICT A strong addition to any library serving toddlers, but could also be used to support early readers in learning basic grammatical ideas.—Danielle Schwessinger
2023-05-09
An invitation to fledgling readers to admire various types of flying craft (while practicing their prepositions).
A jet plane “soars across the sky,” a glider “glides behind a plane,” and other flyers from a toy airplane to the International Space Station go above, below, between, and around in big, bright stock photographs as Allenby repeatedly urges readers to “Look up high!” Following a picture of two young Black groundlings running “beside” one another while holding a toy plane (an image that abandons the book’s premise, but so what) and a final view of an adult hoisting a smiling toddler (both are Black) overhead (“How would YOU zoom across the sky?”), a section for caregivers, in smaller type, takes over, with suggestions for simple activities that further explore or embody positional relationships (pretend to be an air traffic control officer and an aircraft, take part in “a preposition version of I Spy”). It’s a quick read but well designed to put wind beneath the wings of children working to get their minds around language and parts of speech. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A short flight, soon past—but with plenty of lift. (Informational picture book. 4-6)
