The Flying Girl
How Aida de Acosta Learned to Soar
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In this beautiful picture book filled with soaring words and buoyant illustrations, award-winners Margarita Engle and Sara Palacios tell the inspiring true story of Aída de Acosta, the first woman to fly a motorized aircraft.
On a lively street in the lovely city of Paris, a girl named Aída glanced up and was dazzled by the sight of an airship. Oh, how she wished she could soar through the sky like that! The inventor of the airship, Alberto, invited Aída to ride with him, but she didn’t want to be a passenger. She wanted to be the pilot.
Aída was just a teenager, and no woman or girl had ever flown before. She didn’t let that stop her, though. All she needed was courage and a chance to try.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Writing in upbeat, intermittently rhyming verse, Engle tells the true story of A da de Acosta, an American woman of Cuban and Spanish descent who piloted an early flying machine. While visiting Paris as a teenager, Acosta is awestruck by eccentric inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont's motorized aircrafts and is determined to pilot one. Despite objections "Girls, they hollered, should only be allowed/ to learn how to cook, sew, and clean,/ but girls, they bellowed, should never/ be taught how to fly/ huge machines" Acosta successfully flies a dirigible, landing in a polo field near Paris. Palacios's mixed-media artwork features ruby and sapphire jewel tones, including in flocks of red birds that accompany Acosta's journey. Engle delivers a sweetly uplifting story about a girl who "only needed courage and a chance to try." Ages 4 8.)
