Scholastic, Inc.
2008
275 pages
Reading Level: 7-8, 9-12
Historical Fiction
Ida Mae Jones grew up on her family farm in Louisiana. She has a passion for flying that was instilled in her by her father, who was a crop duster. She wants desperately to become a pilot, but that is no easy feat for a woman, especially a black woman in the South, so she makes plans to go north to earn her pilot's license. However, before she earns enough money for that, World War II breaks out. Her brother drops out of medical school and enlists in the army. Ida Mae is worried for him, and she wants to help in the war effort as much as she can because she believes that this will help her brother in some way. That way eventually comes in the form of WASP, Women Airforce Service Pilots. Ida Mae sees this as her chance to help and uses her light skin color to her advantage in gaining acceptance into WASP by passing herself off as a white girl. She has to deny her family and friends in order to maintain her assumed identity.
My rating on this book is excellent. The themes in Flygirl are gender and racial discrimination, friendship, family, and self. Because of these themes and the historical content, there many things in this book that can be used for teaching such as segregation in communities and in the military.
No comments:
Post a Comment