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A review by erica_s
Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America by Steve Sheinkin
4.0
Sheinkin focuses on the 13 women who won the race called the Women's Air Derby of 1929, plus another few who did not finish - their planes crashed or they died - in this novel-length non-fiction book which would be great for readers in a wide middle-school range; 5th to 9th grade.
Full of drama, the narrative hops continuously between these "main characters" from stories of their childhoods, how they got into flying, preparing for the race, the race itself, and a little bit of their post-race lives.
Some readers may feel discombobulated trying to keep track of the various young women, and even for those who love the format and easily keep track of the different stories, it might wear thin eventually. Nevertheless, many readers will find it hard to put down, especially with occasional mentions of technological context reminding them of the fact that these first airplanes often broke down, crashed, caught fire, and the pilots & navigators were routinely injured, sometimes fatally.
Since this story is so compelling and appealing (as much as our popular maritime disaster stories), it is unfortunate that Sheinkin didn't include charts, graphs, timelines, and historical/political/social context. A list of the race's participants and their age at the time would have been nice to see - not just the list of the winners and their standing/time (p. 199).
As a gateway attention-grabber for reluctant readers, it **could have** helped kids place the nascent social acceptance of women as competent mechanics, collaborative leaders, and fiercely independent pilots in the context of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression...but readers will have to seek elsewhere for that.
B&w crayon-pencil illustrations throughout are the perfect pause for the eyes, but I very much wished the many photos were twice their size, as they are full of important and interesting details of equipment, clothing, facial expressions, etc., which were barely visible at half a page.
Despite these flaws, I highly recommend this book!
Full of drama, the narrative hops continuously between these "main characters" from stories of their childhoods, how they got into flying, preparing for the race, the race itself, and a little bit of their post-race lives.
Some readers may feel discombobulated trying to keep track of the various young women, and even for those who love the format and easily keep track of the different stories, it might wear thin eventually. Nevertheless, many readers will find it hard to put down, especially with occasional mentions of technological context reminding them of the fact that these first airplanes often broke down, crashed, caught fire, and the pilots & navigators were routinely injured, sometimes fatally.
Since this story is so compelling and appealing (as much as our popular maritime disaster stories), it is unfortunate that Sheinkin didn't include charts, graphs, timelines, and historical/political/social context. A list of the race's participants and their age at the time would have been nice to see - not just the list of the winners and their standing/time (p. 199).
As a gateway attention-grabber for reluctant readers, it **could have** helped kids place the nascent social acceptance of women as competent mechanics, collaborative leaders, and fiercely independent pilots in the context of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression...but readers will have to seek elsewhere for that.
B&w crayon-pencil illustrations throughout are the perfect pause for the eyes, but I very much wished the many photos were twice their size, as they are full of important and interesting details of equipment, clothing, facial expressions, etc., which were barely visible at half a page.
Despite these flaws, I highly recommend this book!