Flying

Have you heard of Aida de Acosta? Few probably have, but even fewer did during her life. She was the first woman to fly a motorized aircraft. But due to “proper” young ladies never did such things, she kept it to herself until almost the mid-twentieth century.

When Aida was a young girl on the streets of Paris, she saw an airship and the flying bug deeply bit her. She knew someday she would “soar” just like the man flying it. But she was not going to be a passenger. No, she was going to pilot it! The inventor of the airship helped her gain her dream.

The Flying Girl: How Aida de Acosta Learned to Soar is a fictionalized telling of how de Acosta became a pilot.

Little known facts to many people, or to at least me, was how many people were pioneers in flight before the Wright Brothers. And Aida’s flight was a whole six months before the Brothers did their historic flight.  This and a few other facts are told throughout the story and the afterwards. Another, was Alberto Santos-Dumont, the man that helped Aida and the Brazilian builder of the aircraft she saw and a leader of the protest movement to use aircrafts in military situations.

Margarita Engle and Sara Palacios create rhyming text and brilliantly bright and colorful illustrations that mix together to tell a story about courage, not giving up your dreams and learning how to fly when people try to hold you down.