Wind-up Plane Book by Usborne

Wind-up Plane Book by Usborne

Rating: 4 stars

Has anyone seen these Usborne books?  They are new to us!  (Check them all out here.)  And they are new to newly four-year-old Ben, who had a very exciting birthday today.  I don't think he stopped grinning all day long.  Four!  Him!  Birthday!  Wow!  Everything had an exclamation mark on it today for Ben!

My sister got this book for him. Right away, we realized it was unique.  As you can see from the picture, it comes with a little airplane.  After Ben gleefully tore off the wrapping paper, we turned the thick board pages--I think there are just six double-spread pages in all--and saw tracks on two of the pages.  I took the airplane out and we pushed it along.  And then--enter another exclamation mark moment here!--we realized that it was a wind-up plane!  Wow!

(Yes, I should have realized it was a wind-up toy by the title, but...if you had one very excited birthday boy and his big sister and little brother doing their best to throw in their own exclamation mark-filled sounds whenever possible, you might have missed that, too.)

And so we tried it out (sorry for the odd angle):

Later, we actually read the book.  The book is Richard Scarry-esque (but with fewer factoids on each page) with an additional story.  This story is about Ben.  Ben!  "Just like me!  Ben!"  Ben takes a plane ride for the first time with his family, and he encounters all the sights and sounds that we grown-ups so quickly dismiss as commonplace.  It's a good book for kids like Ben who have been on an airplane once or twice and therefore still see it as a novel, exciting, almost magical thing.

Plus it's cool!  It has a wind-up airplane that comes with it!  Hopefully we won't lose it, like, tomorrow!


P.S.  Happy Birthday to one smiley, now snoozey Ben.