The Airport Book

Author: Lisa Brown
Roaring Brook Press (2016)

As a future educator, being able to critically analyze a book and decide whether it should be used in the classroom is a skill that will be essential. There are many different types of children's books to choose from and a teacher needs to be able to figure out which books should and should not be used. For example The Airport Book, written by Lisa Brown, is a book of information that teaches the reader about the process of maneuvering through an airport. The Airport Book is centered on a family that is traveling with a young child that is experiencing an airport and flying for the first time. This is an effective book of information because of the sequence of the content, the illustrations, and the overall sentence structure. 


First, The Airport Book is an effective children's book because of the logical sequence of events it takes the reader through. If the aim of a book is to teach the reader about the process of something, it is important that the events are taught in the correct order. This is something that author Lisa Brown does very well with her book. A younger reader has the opportunity to see all of the required steps of entering and exiting airports. The book demonstrates the family leaving their home and arriving at the entrance. It then goes on to show the reader checking in luggage and going through security. Later on it also shows the reader what happens on the plane and what happens when the plane lands. If one of those steps were out of place, the reader could be confused and misinformed about traveling around an airport. The fact that the author was careful and included each step in its logical sequence helps with the impact of the book. In addition to the sequence of events, the illustrations keep the reader engaged throughout. 


Arguably, the illustrations that fill each page contain wonderful colors and images that bring the words to live for the reader. The illustrations are perfect when it comes to The Airport Book because it helps visually demonstrate what a person might see when the go to an airport. They are extremely accurate and are rich with detail. It shows the machines that check bags and what the inside of a plane would look like. The pictures of certain events typically take up two pages at a time and are big so they can easily be identified. Also, the characters within the images will have little bubbles where it shows them saying different things. For example, the security person has a "Next in line!" phrase next to him to show how everyone must be checked before entering (Brown). The illustrations further explain the content and all for the reader to visually see what is being talked about. Similar to illustrations and sequence of events, the sentence structure is an essential part of the impact. 


Lastly, the sentence structure is something that can be helpful as well. An author never wants to make a children?s book too difficult. However, authors still want to challenge readers to help make the book useful for the development of the student's reading skills. In The Airport Book, Brown uses short and to the point sentences to get across the information. An example of the sentences found on a page would be, "A flight attendant walks up and down the aisle. Sometimes you get something to eat. Sometimes you get something to drink" (Brown). All of those sentences are short and contain little bits of information. This is done so the text can easily read and understood. The words are not too difficult but there also might be words that are not part of the vocabulary of the child. The book is not too difficult and does not scare children away from attempting to read it. 


In conclusion, The Airport Book is effective and should be used in classrooms with students. This book should be used in classrooms with students because it has a logical order of events, contains creative illustrations, and provides simple sentence structure. Brown does a wonderful job of providing a positive book that readers can come to and learn from. As a future educator, this would be a book that I would want in my classroom. 
     
Review by Mitchell Rickard