For the last three nights my five year-old has insisted that Griffon Spitfire Aces is an essential part of his bed-time stories. This is not my choice I promise. After a trip to the Science Museum in London he has become obsessed with what he terms ‘fighter jets’ (I’ve tried explaining the difference between jet and propeller driven aircraft), saw the book and wanted to look through it. So we look at the aces and how many ‘baddies’ they shot down, we look at the photographs of the crashed planes and we count the blades on the propellers. He now understands the profiles are not there to be cut out and gets the idea of guns being mounted in the wing.
So is this wrong or at least worse than the Power Rangers? Should I be hiding these books or encouraging the interest? At the moment I’m trying to be neutral, neither encourage or put-off the interest and I’ll let him decide but it is quite difficult to précis an Aircraft of the Aces for a five year-old.