The Airport Book by Lisa Brown

Do you have any airport travel coming up this summer? I’ve got the perfect airplane book for you all… So perfect that we first read it about 3 years ago, before an airplane trip to get our girls ready and excited, and we continue to read it today, loving it and noticing still new details every time (and yes, this is another book that long ago lost its dust jacket…). For your children’s summer travel reading pleasure, I bring you The Airport Book by Lisa Brown.

The Airport Book is uniquely written in a blend of fiction and nonfiction. Fictionally, the story begins with a depiction of a rainy day on the endpages, and it moves quickly to scenes of a family packing for vacation on the title page. We then follow the family as they scramble to get into their cab, make their way through the airport, board their flight, fly, and land somewhere very sunny and beachy for a visit with their grandparents. This story is told through speech bubbles and intrinsically detailed illustrations, with incredibly likeable and relateable characters.

But, interspersed with this story of a family taking a trip, children get factual information about airports and airplane travel! In standard type, Brown gives readers bits and pieces of necessary information about airplane travel, which all result in more knowledgeable and therefore more comfortable young travelers. From various lines that you might have to wait in to the x-ray scanning machines (for both luggage and people…) to preparing the plane for take-off to possible turbulence, Brown has covered it all in a very easy-to-read format.

So, the combination story and informational text is wonderful for young readers. But, Brown does even more amazing things in The Airport Book. For starters, the featured family is a mixed-race family, and the travelers depicted in the airport are also wonderfully diverse, but neither of these is the focus of the book. The younger sister has a beloved stuffed animal (“Monkey”), which becomes it’s own little plot-line in the larger story. There’s a woman in a business suit talking incessantly on her cell phone (which Brown writes simply “Blah blah blah blah…”) almost the whole entire time the family is waiting in the airport, a luggage mix-up between someone clearly dressed for the snow and someone else ready to go to the beach, a puppy who escapes his crate in the cargo hold, and a woman constantly checking with her companion to make sure he has the tickets, boarding passes, hotel reservations, etc… among many, many other delightful details and storylines to follow! Conversations abound about the various travelers each time you open this book.

Publishers recommend this for ages 3-7.

Do you have a favorite book that has helped your child become comfortable with airline travel?

If you liked this, check out:

• Richard Scarry’s A Day at the Airport
• Planes and Airport by Byron Barton, especially for younger audiences
• How Airports Work by Lonely Planet Kids