The Boy With Paper Wings - Hardcover

Fiction and how-to directions on paper-folding make an odd coupling in this curious hybrid. Sick with a fever, 11-year-old Paul makes a plane from origami paper (instructions for making the plane are incorporated into the text). When it flies into his closet, the boy retrieves it, only to find himself in the middle of a battlefield that is an enlarged version of his homemade war diorama. Paul makes friends with one of the good soldiers and encounters a Barbie doll come-to-life (which his sister has presumably left in his room). Assuring her that "After this, they'll call you Mighty Power Barbie or something," Paul persuades Barbie to throw a bomb at the bad guys. Subsequently, other items Paul fashions from folded paper deliver him into-and often out of-similarly fantastic encounters (Paul flies on the back of an albatross, swims with a humpback whale, battles a paper wolf and befriends talking geometric shapes on the Planet X). Though Lowell (I Am Lavinia Cummings) occasionally interjects some genuinely funny lines, for the most part this is a silly, insignificant tale, with a dark, disturbing undercurrent of violence. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Grade 4-6?To amuse himself while sick in bed, Paul, 11, pulls out his box of craft supplies and makes a paper airplane. He imagines himself as the pilot, flying amid the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets affixed to his ceiling. The plane lands on a military diorama in his closet, and to his surprise, the scene comes to life. The boy shrinks to fit in it, and discovers that a clay figure he made is now an evil creature known as KRON, who is bent on sucking the brains out of the "good guys." During the course of the day, Paul slips back and forth between reality and fantasy, each time using his knowledge of paper-folding to create different means of escaping KRON. Like his family, some readers might think that Paul's adventures are fever-induced hallucinations; they do seem like a sick child's bad dreams. Black-and-white pictures and instructions for making his paper creations are incorporated into the text. Paul is a realistic, likable hero, and while this book is not an essential purchase, paper-airplane fans may enjoy the story's unusual theme.?Mary Jo Drungil, Niles Public Library District, IL
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.