My son received David Hitch’s Make It! Jet Plane for Christmas, and he loves it. It’s a great combination of storybook and papercraft.
Make It! Jet Plane tells the story of a young boy, Tom, who imagines building his very own jet plane. With the help of his friend Stella, they design and build their own paper jet plane that becomes a real jet that they fly in. The story itself is fairly short but does touch on the importance of creativity and imagination, and the art is very cute.
But the real magic is that throughout the book, there are pieces of the jet plane that can be punched out. There are informational blurbs underneath most of the pieces about things like wings and flaps. While most of the pieces were easy enough for my two-year-old to punch out himself, I did most of the assembly for him.
The pieces are very nicely detailed and are made of very heavy-duty cardboard. Some of the pieces even have silver printed details that really pop. One of the other cool things is that the jet has two seats and both Tom and Stella cutouts. My son would fly the jet around the house and then switch them, allowing the two kids to take turns flying the jet around the house.
To see just how much he enjoyed it, here’s a video of the jet’s maiden flight around our house:
