Born to Fly by Steve Sheinkin - ESSENTIAL

Born to Fly by Steve Sheinkin, 262 pages.  NON-FICTION  Roaring Brook Press, 2019.  $20.  

Language: PG (5 swears); Mature Content: G; Violence: G.  

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS, HS – ESSENTIAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

A group of daring women in the late 1920’s challenge the largely held viewpoint that women couldn’t fly by competing in an Air Derby.  Beginning when they were young girls, Sheinkin gives evidence of six of the girls and their love of taking to the air through jumping off roofs with umbrellas, to inventing their own rollercoasters.  As they grew older each had their own moment when they knew they wanted to fly planes and their journey to participating in the Air Derby in 1929.  The Air Derby is the bulk of the story but is interlaced with human interest stories about some of the pilots and the challenges they faced.  The women pilots’ goal was to show the world that women were qualified to take to the skies.  

I loved this book.  I got totally caught up in the Air Derby and thought I had picked who I wanted to win the race, until Sheinkin would explain the backstory of another pilot and their spunk and by the end, I found myself cheering for all of them. This is an inspiring story that Sheinkin has masterfully plotted to draw in the reader and made it impossible to put down.  

Reviewer, C. Peterson.