Believing in Yourself – My Book Review

A Time to Fly! is a gem of a children’s book illustrating the story of how a mother bluebird coached her last baby to trust his own wings and fly.

Written by Diann Floyd Boehm this story revolves around how bird parents found the perfect nest location to raise their three babies. One baby is having a hard time trusting in his own wings to carry him from the nest. With coaching the baby bird was soon flying like his brother and sister.

This is the first time I heard of a dyslexic-friendly font. While I could not see any notable changes in the font it is great knowing that even my using Verdana font in my emails is making it easier for people with dyslexia.

Nancy Hoover’s illustrations jump off the page and are visually engaging. In some of the illustrations, the bird’s eyes have a soulful gleam.

There are formatting issues with this book like as the consistency of quotations and page numbers.  While children will not care about the formatting or notice it, the formatting does detract from the professionalism of the story. Children’s books do not need page numbers. Also, the text could have been widened a bit more to fill out more of each page, as well preventing it from running into the seam of the book.

A Time to Fly is an ideal book to read out loud to younger ages from 3 to 6-year-olds. I could see myself having kids animate the flapping of bird wings with their arms. This book definitely has the potential to be used as part of STEM learning.

Overall, the best part about this children’s book is the take-home message for kids showing that they can trust and believe in themselves. The second-best part is that this story shows that even baby birds have the same issues as kids in believing in themselves.