Look Up High! Things That Fly - (Big, Little Concepts) by Victoria Allenby

About the Book

"Rhyming text and bright color photographs introduce preschoolers to many kinds of machines that fly. On each spread, a repeating verse is designed to encourage recitation and prediction, while a concluding line names the featured flying machine and introduces a preposition ("The water bomber swoops through the smoke.") A closing spread provides enrichment activities to further a child's engagement with the book and with language skills."--]cProvided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Look up High! Jet planes fly.

How? Where? Look up there!
The jet plane soars across the sky.

Helicopters, gliders, and planes--oh my! Preschoolers never get tired of cool flying machines. Indulge their love for things with wings (and a few without) with bright photographs and jaunty verse that makes it easy for pre-readers to chime in. They won't even notice the subtle language lesson in prepositions as the hot air balloon drifts between the mountains, the water bomber swoops through the smoke, and the space station orbits around the Earth.

With Look Up High! Things That Fly, Victoria Allenby adds another kid-tastic instalment to the Big, Little Concept Books collection that has already graced story times with the Mathical Book Prize honor book Shape Up, Construction Trucks!, the sound-celebrating Listen Up! Train Song, and Let's Add Up!, where addition meets imagination. Like its predecessors, the book features a closing note to caregivers with age-appropriate enrichment activities to extend both the learning and the fun. But they needn't worry about handing the whole thing over to their children, since the padded cover, rounded corners, and extra-sturdy paper of this Toddler Tough format can endure many a rough reading. Now spread your wings and ask yourself: How would YOU zoom across the sky?

Review Quotes

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

About the Author

Victoria Allenby has been writing poetry and stories for as long as she can remember. Her debut picture book, Nat the Cat Can Sleep Like That, won the 2014 Preschool Reads Award and was nominated for the 2015 SYRCA Shining Willow Award. After several more picture books and the critically acclaimed Toadstool Corners early reader series, Victoria earned a constellation of starred reviews for her innovative Big, Little Concept Books series for very young children, which includes Shape Up, Construction Trucks!, Listen Up! Train Song, and Let's Add Up! Victoria lives in Toronto, Ontario.