the flight of icarus story collections book

Every time Kubinyi’s pen drops to the page it looks like it was planned a month ago. His usual modus operandi is his extremely delicate linework coupled with what I’m going to dub precision watercolors. Illustrator Laszlo Kubinyi is one of those artists that stay on the periphery of children’s literature without demanding the spotlight.

Where can you learn about this “fascinating dead end”? I, for one, would love to know more. Or, to return to my first love, the jetpack (“Bell Rock Belt”) of 1953. This is particularly unfortunate since I think kids will definitely want to read more about things like the Minerva, that insane dream of Etienne-Gaspard Robert to create a veritable castle in the sky. is “The Olmecs, an ancient pre-Columbian people living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, begin building pyramids”). This Timeline is interesting because it reflects some major events happening in the world in tandem with each step forward in flight (example: 800 B.C. The backmatter consists of Endnotes and a Timeline. After all, ending with a poem that talks about a tragedy wouldn’t really sign off the book on the right note. As it stands, it’s enough in some ways to know that they are included in the book in some fashion.

Some readers may wish that a sober note could have been made in the poetry, alluding to these two incidents. It’s only when you read the notes in the back that you hear about its own fate. Similarly the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-109 is seen at the height of its power. You see the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin then, rather than its less fortunate cousin, the Hindenburg. Though the Endnotes mention the tragic ends to some of these creations, the text of the poems themselves is consistently upbeat. Though it is by Kubinyi, this exact image does not appear in the book. One might assume that kids would be familiar with this myth and discount it as legend, but couched alongside all these true moments in history, I would have liked this to have been a little clearer. One quibble I might have would be the fact that the Icarus story that starts us off is never identified as a myth in either the poem or the backmatter. As for the wordplay itself, how do you resist a line like, “metal Darth Vader / impersonator” to describe a sleek metal fighter jet? So it is that the utterly ridiculous Ornithopter is described in a limerick, while the poem about The Wright Brothers gets a more respectful A/B/A/B format. Instead, their formats pair well alongside their texts. For example, poems are not held to the same standards or rote forms. Lewis allows himself to have a bit of fun with this particular book. Backmatter includes Endnotes and a Timeline. The desire to lift oneself up unto the heavens above inspires both genius and madness in flight’s inventors. And some, when all is said and done, never even left the minds of their creators (as with the beautiful Minerva that graces the cover of this book). Others, like the kooky Piaseckivz-8P Airgeep or the French Equestrian Balloon are a little more obscure. Some you’ve undoubtedly heard of, like the zeppelin. Some were utter failures, like the multiplane of the Marquis d’Equeville. Some were successful, as with the Montgolfier brothers’ hot air balloon. Thirteen poems trace thirteen attempts at making it to the sky. Where there’s a jetpack, there’s a testament to our amazing/nutso imaginations. The result comes off as a kind of ode to not just our successes but our fantastic failures as well. Lewis has written out thirteen poems tracing the history of humanity’s obsession with flight.

Patrick Lewis and partner in crime Laszlo Kubinyi in their, Skywriting: Poems to Fly. That’s what you get, though, when you read through the latest from J. Now I have never seen a jetpack make an appearance in a non-fiction title for children before and I CERTAINLY have never seen one in a non-fiction book of poetry. Humans get a real kick out of that sort of thing. So in many ways the future just boils down to thinking up new ways to soar through the air. When you think of the future you may imagine things like flying cars or personalized jet packs. That’s what the future was supposed to hold for us.

The flight of icarus story collections book