A high spot in aviation history, particularly noteworthy for the rugged perseverance of those who achieved it.
An epic feat from an era in which radio was still newfangled and many people “had never seen an airplane, except in pictures.”
In fact, the U.S. Army aviators chosen for this 1924 expedition left radios behind—along with life preservers and parachutes—to lighten the load on their planes (they did take a pair of stuffed toy monkeys). Fortunately, as Grove, a Smithsonian educator, makes clear in a meticulous account based on journals and other documentary evidence, not only were diplomatic and other preparations made for each planned stop on the carefully mapped course, but the Navy provided near-continual monitoring. Not that the flight went smoothly: One of the four planes crashed into an Alaska mountain, and another sank in the North Atlantic. Along with awful weather (“The Aleutians have but two kinds of weather it seems, bad and worse,” wrote one pilot) and multiple forced landings, so rickety were the aircraft in general that wear and tear required multiple full engine replacements along the way. The flight took 150 days, and the aviators lost a bet with the Prince of Wales that he could beat them across the Atlantic by boat. Of six nations competing to be first to circle the globe, only the U.S. team was able to finish. It’s a grand tale, set handsomely here amid sheaves of maps, short journal passages and contemporary photos.
A high spot in aviation history, particularly noteworthy for the rugged perseverance of those who achieved it. (endnotes, summary charts, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1482-5
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
An imaginative premise, fledged in showy if sometimes overdecorated finery.
A corvid catastrophe threatens swashbuckling Blue Jay and his mixed avian crew after a treetop shipwreck leaves them to the tender mercies of a murder of crows.
Reputed to be “generally the most bloodthirsty and fearsome pirate to sail the high skies” (but not really that bad), Blue Jay flies the Jolly Robin from his ship the Grosbeak. Aside, however, from occasional harmless plundering, he much prefers sailing grandly through the clouds. Still, after falling into the clutches of his more viciously piratical cousin Teach and getting their flight feathers clipped, he and his scrappy crew—particularly Gabriel, a recent hatchling who grows in the tale from an oversized and ungainly bumbler into a magnificent Branta goose—must act. They rise to defeat the crows in a pair of savage battles with help from flocks of sparrows and an intrepid mole. In his debut as a novelist, Nash’s dialogue comes off as stilted (“This evening… I managed to successfully facilitate a visit between our unwitting weasels and a she wolf,” reports the mole), and his efforts to inject mystical notes with repeated references to geese as gods or godlings seem labored. Otherwise, he crafts a merry romp that is much enhanced by frequent formally drawn ink-and-color scenes of an airborne galleon and full-body portraits of birds posing in 17th-century costume.
An imaginative premise, fledged in showy if sometimes overdecorated finery. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3264-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Echoes of Peter Pan notwithstanding, a less-than-seaworthy outing.
Endowed with the trappings of a comedic pirate yarn but not its heart, this series opener focuses more on one character’s soul-searching than nautical action.
Hardly has sheltered young “Old Worlder” Jem arrived on tropical islands believed to be haunted by the ghosts of exterminated natives than he is kidnapped by genteel pirates led by a grandiose pipsqueak. He is then rescued by the Lost Souls—an unwashed crew of orphans and runaways (all 13 or younger) sailing the supposed ghost ship Margaret’s Hop (the terminal “e” having been lost in the past) under the command of fiery but insecure Capt. Scarlet McCray. Guided by a map that belonged to his vanished uncle and pursued by the aforementioned pirates, Jem and the Lost Souls set out to find a fabled treasure. The search, however, proves little more than a vehicle for Scarlet’s continual second-guessing as she frets about being a proper, “captainly” leader and struggles to keep the Lost Souls entertained and a rebellious crew member in line. In the wake of numerous contrived obstacles overcome, the sudden re-emergence of Scarlet’s suppressed awareness that she’s half-Islander serves as a more sharply felt (if, at least for readers, not particularly cogent) climax than the discovery of the “treasure.” This turns out to be a glade so mystically peaceful that the fact that it’s surrounded by birds’ nests full of rubies comes across as just a nice added feature.
Echoes of Peter Pan notwithstanding, a less-than-seaworthy outing. (map, glossary) (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: July 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-448-45776-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
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