Virtual Children's Books Exhibits

KITES

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Shapes

Kites Kites Kites

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kites6.  Games and Sports for Young Boys. London: Routledge, Warne and Routledge, 1859.

A kite's shape is not always determined by elegant aerodynamic symmetries—it can also be an expression of the maker's imagination. The Western kite has never rivaled the formal exuberance of its counterparts in Japan, but these examples give some idea of the possibilities that the authors of activity books presented to the ambitious boy-builder in Victorian England.  Such kites were typically six feet high and required not only above average artistic abilities to decorate, but considerable strength to fly, as they could pull as hard as a horse!