Daredevil: The Daring Life of Betty Skelton

Author: Meghan McCarthy
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2013
Age Range: Grades K-3
Lexile: 640L
ISBN: 9781442422629

Recognition
Starred review in Publishers Weekly
Junior Library Guild Selection



I had never heard of Betty Skelton, the subject of Meghan McCarthy's new biography, Daredevil: The Daring Life of Betty Skelton.  She was quite a remarkable woman, and McCarthy shares the highlights of Skelton's life in this attractive picture book.  The book opens in the early 1930s with Betty as a young girl, sitting on her front porch with a toy airplane as a naval airplane flies overhead.  She grew up next to a navy base in Pensacola, Florida, and that exposure shaped her love of planes and flying.  The book then chronicles her first (not quite legal) solo flight at age 12 and her acquisition of a pilot's license at 16.  As a woman, she was not allowed to become a navy or commercial pilot, so she developed her talents and became a stunt pilot.  After breaking several flying records, she also made a mark in racecar driving and boat jumping.  She also trained at NASA with the Mercury 7 astronauts but ultimately didn't go on the space mission.  After reading about all of Betty Skelton's feats and accomplishments, it is clear that "Daredevil" is an appropriate title for the book.

The length of the book as well as McCarthy's word choice and writing style make this a great read-aloud for students in primary grades.  Both girls and boys will enjoy the descriptions of Betty's tricks, stunts, and records in the air, on the racetrack, and in the water.  There is a strong female empowerment theme throughout the book, as McCarthy mentions several times that Betty's actions were unique and groundbreaking for a woman of that time period.  The playful illustrations in bright primary colors match the text and depict fun facts like Betty's preference for flying barefoot.

The only area of concern in this book is the issue of whether all of the details are portrayed accurately.  Alyson Low's review for School Library Journal addresses this issue (full review can be read on the book's Amazon profile).  Low mentions the fact that the book leads young readers to believe that Betty Skelton prepared for her first solo flight at age 12 just by reading about airplanes.  The book doesn't mention that she had lessons from Ensign Kenneth Wright.  I noticed another issue when reading some of the primary source news articles that Megan McCarthy's webpage links to.  One of the articles, "The Highest-Up Girl is Only 5 Feet High" explains that mechanics gave Betty's tiny plane the name "Little Stinker."  McCarthy's book just says that Betty gave her plane that name.  

Since McCarthy provides convenient access to primary source articles about Betty Skelton, this book would be a great tool to teach students about primary sources and the way that one source may not give the full story. In her book, McCarthy explains that Betty was not included among the Mercury 7 because "NASA wasn't ready to send a woman to space."  In a 1960 newspaper article in the S.F. Examiner, Betty Skelton gave her age as the only reason that she was not sent on a space mission.  NASA would only send people under the age of 35 on space missions, but she would be too old by the time they were ready to launch.  However, in an interview for a later article that was published when Sally Ride became the first American female astronaut, Betty acknowledged that NASA had been discriminatory toward women at the time that she trained with them.  She mentioned that she and other women were only included in the astronaut training because "they were trying to get the public off their backs about not including women."  Even though Daredevil is targeted to children in lower elementary, it could easily be used with older children to teach them how authors use primary sources and the way that different sources can give conflicting accounts of events and situations.

Below is footage of Betty Skelton flying in 1948.  It was posted on YouTube by the Florida Memory Project.

In this video, Megan McCarthy talks about her artistic process as she paints an illustration for Daredevil.

Click Here to see Betty's airplane, "Little Stinker," on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Learn more about Betty Skelton by checking out the resources on Megan McCarthy's webpage for Daredevil.

Henry and the Cannons: An Extraordinary True Story of the American Revolution

Author: Don Brown
Publisher: Roaring Brook, 2013
Age Range: Grades 2-5
Lexile: 820L
ISBN: 9781596432666

Recognition
Starred Review in School Library Journal
Junior Library Guild selection


Henry and the Cannons tells the story of  Boston bookseller, Henry Knox, who went on a grueling journey during the winter of 1775 to retrieve cannons from Fort Ticonderoga in New York and deliver them to General Washington and his army who were camped out above British-occupied Boston.

The book is both written and illustrated by Don Brown.  The story is told in a very straightforward style that could easily be followed by young children, even if they lack understanding of much of the larger context of the American Revolution.  The muted colors in Brown's watercolor illustrations are very attractive yet communicate the bleak, wintry conditions of Knox's journey.

Some of the pages are divided into panels, allowing the illustrations to more powerfully indicate action and the passage of time.

Henry and the Cannons incorporates three direct quotes from Henry Knox himself (they are the only quotations in the book).  Curious about whether the quotes were historically accurate, I looked at the book's bibliography.  None of the sources listed were primary sources themselves, but a webpage on the list, The Knox Trail-History, contained transcriptions of primary sources.  The webpage, hosted by the New York State Museum, tells the complete story of Henry Knox's mission.  It incorporates many excerpts from the diary that Knox kept at the time as well as letters that he sent to Washington and others.  Each of the three quotations that Brown incorporated in his book can be found in primary sources excerpted on this webpage.

Although Henry and the Cannons is targeted to students in lower elementary grades, it could definitely be read and enjoyed by fifth grade students who are studying the American Revolution (covered by Indiana academic standards for 5th grade social studies).  The picture book is a much more appealing way to learn about this historical event than a textbook's rendition.  The fact that the book includes quotations from Knox could be a great way to introduce students to the concept of primary sources.  The teacher or librarian could ask the students, "How do we know that that is what Henry Knox really said?"  Then they could explain to students how primary sources can give us an idea of what really happened in the past.  Students could then look at the Knox Trail webpage and read other pieces of Knox's writings, adding depth to their knowledge of Knox and the historical event.  The primary sources would also allow students to see how spelling and grammar have changed over the past couple hundred years.

An Amazon preview of Henry and the Cannons is available HERE.

Learn more about Don Brown and his books by visiting his website- Books by Brown.

His book, Let It Begin Here!: April 19, 1775: The Day the American Revolution Began (Roaring Brook, 2008) makes a good companion to Henry and the Cannons.

For another great picture book about Henry Knox, check out Anita Silvey's Henry Knox: Bookseller, Soldier, Patriot (Clarion, 2010).

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature

Author: Joyce Sidman

Illustrator: Beth Krommes

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011

Age Range: Grades K-2

Lexile: 330L

ISBN: 9780547315836

Awards and Recognition

Junior Library Guild Selection

Young Hoosier Award Nominee 2013-2014

ALA Notable Children's Book, 2012

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature is a beautiful display of the the many qualities and functions of spirals.  Joyce Sidman describes in poetic sentences the way that spirals protect and give strength to plants and animals.  She also explains the way that they can be observed in weather patterns- visible in the air and water.  Her examples are beautifully depicted in Beth Krommes' artwork.

Each page contains no more than a singe sentence, making it a quick read.  However, the reader will want to linger on each page observing the intricacies of the artwork.  The book would work well as a read-aloud for a class of students, but it would work even better as a read-aloud with just one or two children sitting right beside the reader.  That way the artwork can be examined up close so the children and adult could point out and discuss all of the examples of spirals shown in the artwork.  The drawings of plants and animals are all labeled, which adds to the scientific purpose of the book.  At the end of the book, Sidman takes a couple pages to add more detailed, expository passages about spirals, giving examples of the way that they are strong, clever, growing, and so on.  The language is still very kid-friendly, but the facts that are read aloud will probably vary depending on the child.  For example, a kindergartener could appreciate the way a hedgehog "rolls up into such a tight spiral that the only thing showing is its bristly back, full of quills."  However, the information about the Fibonacci sequence would be better comprehended by an older child.

I was surprised by the extent of the examples of swirls in this book.  Sidman reveals that swirls can be found all throughout nature.  After reading this book, children will likely want to look for swirls in their own classroom, house, or backyard.  A parent or teacher could encourage them to keep a scientific notebook to record "swirl sightings."  The child could practice making detailed drawings and labeling them.  This could lead to other nature observations that could be recorded in their notebook.

The unique pictures in the book are scratchboard illustrations.  You can read an explanation of this style of art at illustrator Beth Krommes' website.  She won the Caldecott Medal in 2009 for a book that she also illustrated in the scratchboard style- The House in the Night.

A video preview of Swirl by Swirl is available on Youtube, posted by the book's publisher.  You can also view the book's Amazon Preview.

If you enjoy Swirl by Swirl, check out this other collaboration between Joyce Sidman and Beth Krommes- Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2006).