Tuesday, September 25, 2018

The Wright Brothers by Slader and Thompson - ESSENTIAL

The Wright Brothers: Nose-Diving into History (Epic Fails) by Erik Slader and Ben Thompson, 115 pages. NON-FICTION/CHAPTER BOOK. Roaring Brook, 2018. $7. 

Language: G (0 swears); Mature Content: PG; Violence: G. 

BUYING ADVISORY: EL - ESSENTIAL. 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

This book covers the history of aviation, dating back before the Wright brothers, through the adventures of the brothers, and past that into the current state of aviation. The book marches through all of the failures that led up to the moment of flight, from small to large, by a lot of people. It connects each failure to what they learned and how they moved on from it to try yet again. There are photographs or illustrations about every third page. 

My entire family enjoyed this book. It is so humbling to realize that just over a hundred years ago so many things that we take for granted now weren’t even possible. This book goes into enough detail that you feel like you are immersed in the history, but it doesn’t bog the reader down. The authors use humor throughout the book and the narrator takes on a personality. It did get a little hard to tell the difference from one failed attempt by the Wright brothers to the next, but it did effectively convey how they never gave up.  

Jen Wecker, HS English Teacher

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