American Heroes: Amelia Earhart-The Sky's No Limit
Author: Lori Van Pelt
Editor: Forge
Year: 2005
A wonderful biography of the life and times of Amelia Earhart. I had to read it for a project. Dreadful thing, it was.. But the book, at least, was good.
Back cover: As a tomboy growing up in Kansas, Amelia Earhart delighted in trying new things, once even bulding a roller coaster in her grandparents' backyard. In her twenties she fell in love with flight while watching an aerobatics exhibition and grew even more enthralled when she took her first airplance ride.
At age twenty-four she eaner her pilot's wings and in 1928 took part in the transatlantic "Friendship" flight. Her willowy build, wholesome smile, and tousled blond hair invited comparison to the celebrated pilot Charles Lindbergh, and 'Lady Lindy' charmed the public with her unassuming manner.
In 1931, Earhart wed publisher George Putnam, who managed her career and promoted her zealously, ensuring her status as the wrold's best-known aviatrix. The next year, she soloed the Atlantic, afterward receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross, and she began championing the efforts of women throughout the world to explose careers--especially in aviation--thraditionally held by men.
Tragically, just dats before her fortieth birthday, Earhart, her navigator, Fred Noonan, and their plane vanished en route to tiny Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean as they neared the end of their round-the-world journey. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the greatest land and ocean search ever undertaken up to that time, but no trace of the missing fliers or their craft was ever found.
To Amelia Earhart, even the sky was no limit to those with the courage to test new boundaries.
Rate: 10/10
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