The Flying Girl: How Aída de Acosta Learned to Soar by Margarita Engle (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- The Flying Girl: How Aída de Acosta Learned to Soar by Margarita Engle
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4814-4502-3 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4814-4503-0 $10.99 Ad 4-7 yrs
Teenaged Aída took one look at the dirigible overhead and it was love at first sight. She had to pilot one of those, regardless of her mother’s aghast reaction to the very idea: “Ay, ay, ay,/ no one will ever marry a girl/who dares to fly!” The dirigible’s owner, however, takes her seriously, offers her lessons, and allows her to fly his machine solo, and she becomes the first women credited with a powered flight. The little-known first makes for an entertaining topic, but the sporadically rhymed text is often forced, particularly when dialogue is involved, and Palacios’ chipper paintings don’t provide enough detail to satisfy viewers with an interest in the dirigible itself. Engle is also unnecessarily miserly with details of time, place, and persons, relegating the exact scene of this episode (France, 1903) and the identity of Alberto the dirigible owner (the world-famous Alberto Santos-Dumont) to an endnote. While the presentation itself is slight, it will make a worthwhile companion book for such titles as Cummins’ Flying Solo: How Ruth Elder Soared into America’s Heart (BCCB 9/13) or Griffith’s The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont (BCCB 10/11).
