Playtown: Airport (revised edition): A Lift-the-Flap book

Got this for my 2 year old after reading another Roger Priddy book gifted by a family member. My toddler was very interested in lifting the flaps to find the objects so I got this airport book for her. I’m slowly introducing the airport and airplane to her, the book may be a little advanced but I think she enjoys looking at the pictures and the different types of airplanes. We will be traveling during the summer so she will be have more context about airports and airplanes by then. A good buy!

My two and a half year old is fascinated with airplanes. He lives near a major airport, so there are plenty in the sky to get excited about. He also has flown since he was 7 months old, and is now a pro in airports and on planes. I bought this book on my recent visit, and he loved it! We didn't lift the flaps yet, but we didn't need to as he was so excited to point out things in the book and talk about them. There is so much already to see on all the pages. It is a very sturdy board book, and he likes to pull it out of his bookcase, lay on the floor in his room, and flip the pages, studying what he sees on each page. When he is a little older, we will lift the flaps. That will give the book an additional surprise for him, and he will better understand how to handle the flaps.

My 15-month-old is OBSESSED with this book. He basically ripped it out of my hands when I opened the box and has been carrying it around for weeks now. And, equally important, I haven’t felt the compulsion to hide it from him just to get away from it yet (I’m talking about you, “100 Things” series.)The book is fourteen pages with seven full-spread scenes: outside the airport, inside the terminal, workers getting the plane ready, boarding the plane, arriving at the destination airport, types of planes, and a giant fold-out cross-section of a passenger jet. There is a TON going on on most pages so even though we spend hours with this book every day, it doesn’t totally kill me. There is no “story” but each flap has a sentence explaining what’s going on, and the characters are repeated on each page so you can follow them through their trip if you choose to. I pick out a different character to focus on and make up a story each time we read it to keep from getting too bored with it myself. There are a ton of flaps but there’s so much going on that my son didn’t even care about them very much the first 1,000 reads (actually, he’d shove them back closed if I opened them.) I think we might have finally opened most of them now after several weeks. The board material and lamination is quite sturdy so I don’t think we’ll start losing flaps for quite a while.The book also does a good job with inclusivity. There are men and women doing all the jobs, people of all colors, abilities, sexual orientation, and age represented. It was copyrighted in 2016 so it’s not dated (ex: people taking selfies as they board.) There are plenty of little details to entertain both children and adults... like the woman standing behind the guy sleeping across three seats with a look of venom on her face. Not something a kid would care about but to an adult it’s like a funny “omg so true” meme. If you happen to be a teetotaler, be aware that the book does feature the adults (err and cats) having champagne and wine. Also plenty of people going potty, which of course my toddler loves. He cracks up about a lot of the people’s behavior, actually.We got this book to prepare our son for his first plane trip coming up, and while he will definitely be pumped to be at the airport, the “10,000 foot view” it gives doesn’t highlight the experience of being on a plane. There are flaps that open to see passengers sitting in the plane, but I’m certain he can’t visualize himself in a seat from that. We also bought “Maisy Goes on a Plane” and that one focuses much more on the “passenger experience.” He loves that one almost as much, so I highly recommend both if you’re preparing for a trip.While my son is pretty young, I think kids as old as four or five will enjoy this. (The age listed is 2+.)

I saw reviews complaining that this book is "too busy," but that made me *want* to get it. Airports are busy and overwhelming and I wanted my little one to get a heads up about that. This book has lots of flaps to open. As an added bonus, I did not need to open those flaps for a few trips. My little one loved staring at all the things going on at the airport and all the vehicles! Once I saw the need for novelty, I opened up the flaps.This is my only con; the flaps are hard to initially open, so I ended up dog-earing most of them in an attempt to dig them out the first time I opened them up. Pretty annoyed with that, but it's a kid's book and they'll eventually get dog-eared anyway!This book has been a huge hit. We used it in preparation to go to the airport, at the airport (where my little one made connections between the illustrations and the real-life vehicles), and now it is a favorite when my little one goes in their car seat for driving anywhere. If your little one loves looking at all the details in a book, they'll love this one!

VERY interactive with multiple flaps per page. I purchased this book for my 15 month old's first flight. It is durable which makes it slightly heavy if you're concerned about weight in your carry-on, but 100% manageable for the entertainment value it can provide.4/5 stars because opening the flaps initially is very hard. I had to use my fingernails to pry them open and carefully lift them up to break the perforations without tearing the flap. It would be IMPOSSIBLE for a toddler to lift the flaps on their own for the very first time. Once broken in, the flaps were fine. But budget a solid 15 minutes for yourself to get them all loosened up. Not exaggerating.

This is a great book and although my 21 month grandson wasn't as interested in what it said under the flaps as he was in listening to me talk about the planes,helicopters, colors & trucks he really loved flipping up the flaps over the pictures. His mom is an airline pilot so even at this young age he has been on enough planes and seemed to really enjoy looking at the pictures. Be aware- the flaps do not fold up easily the first time so I had to use the pointy end of a small steak knife to GENTLY slide it under each flap to get it to fold up easily and you have to be careful not to tear them. Kind of was a pain but once they came up the first time were easy for him to flip up to see what was underneath. Very entertaining book - nice sturdy pages and flaps.

My wife is a flight attendant and my son loves airports.. airplanes .. we lost the first one and I bought the second . It’s INCREDIBLE