Randy Horton, age 8, of Tucson, Arizona, for his question:

When did people first fly kites?

In Egypt, researchers found ancient pictures of people flying their kites. They were drawn thousands of years ago, maybe even before the famous Egyptian pyramids were built. Perhaps this was when people first invented kites and flew them up there in the breezy sky. But nobody is certain. It seems that people in many other lands also flew kites ages ago. We cannot say exactly where or when the wonderful thing happened first.

We know that the people of Japan have been expert kite fliers for many hundreds of years. Every May, Japanese children take part in a wonderful kite festival. In China, they have a Kites' Day every year. Thousands of people fly breezy kites shaped like dragons and birds, butterflies and fishes and anything else you can imagine. The people of Korea and Malaya also have flown kites for many centuries. Most likely kites were invented in many different places     and the first successful one was forgotten long, long ago.