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Wings and Rockets : The Story of Women in Air and Space
Wings and Rockets The Story of Women in Air and Space Author:Jeannine Atkins From Katharine Wright, sister of the Wright brothers, to Eileen Collins, the first woman commander of a spacecraft, scores of women have played critical roles in our country's history of aviation. Wilbur and Orville Wright, who pioneered powered flight in 1903, knew how much they owed to Katharine. "When the world speaks of ... more »the Wrights," said Orville, "they should not forget our sister."
Although Katharine Wright was among the first women to ride in an airplane, Blanche Stuart Scott was the first to sit at the controls. Her initial approach to her instructor was met with this remark: "I never gave a girl a lesson, and I never will." But Glenn Curtiss was no match for the determined Blanche, and it wasn't long before she joined his exhibition team.
Sexism was not the only obstacle Blanche Stuart overcame to achieve her dream. The same can be said of every other woman whose piloting career is highlighted here — Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart, Jackie Cochran, Ann Baumgartner Carl, Jerrie Cobb, Shannon Wells Lucid, and Eileen Collins — as well as those who are treated more briefly: Harriet Quimby, Ruth Nichols, Louise Thaden, Donna Shirley, and others. Their stories are sure to fire the imaginations of readers and encourage them to "follow their hearts into the sky" — or anywhere at all.
Jeannine Atkins pays tribute in beautifully articulated stories, dramatized with imagined thoughts and dialogue, to women pilots whose common courage, passion, and skill were exercised differently over time as "attitudes and aircraft changed." Dušan Petričić complements the stories in his own witty way, with pictures that both match and enhance the history.« less