Into the Air: An Illustrated Timeline of Flight

Offering a brief line of text and several sidebars per spread, Into the Air: An Illustrated Timeline of Flight by Ryan Ann Hunter, illus. by Yan Nascimbene, charts the development of flight from ""giant dragonflies [that] zigzagged through steamy swamps above the heads of lumbering reptiles"" (a sidebar shows one from 325 million years ago with a two-foot wingspan) to early balloons and gliders (another sidebar depicts Leonardo da Vinci's models of flying machines called ""ornithopters"") and finally the invention of the airplane itself. Spare, full-bleed illustrations make a dramatic and attractive backdrop for this study of airborne creatures, both animal and human.