The Hallelujah Flight - Phil Bildner

Illustrated by John Holyfield
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2010
$16.99
32 pgs.
Rating: 5
Endpapers: brown & white US map with route and stops between LA and NYC

Using wonderful words that tell a terrific story - based on a real event - Phil Bildner recreates a 1932 transcontinental flight piloted by James Banning and told by his co-pilot, Thomas Allen. We see joy and excitement, danger and prejudice, but most of all, never-ending spirit and good will. This is a wonderful story that urges us to learn more about James Banning.

And then there are the illustrations. They, too, show all the emotion and detail of the story. They make the journey complete.

What a perfect book - cleverly written and joyfully illustrated with an exciting, super-interesting, adventurous, real-life story!

Ron's Big Mission - Rose Blue & Corinne J. Naden

Illustrator: Don Tate
2009
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Azure
$16.99

This is the fictionalized account of something that happened to Ron McNair in 1959 in his hometown in South Carolina. However, since it's based on a true story, I'm going to consider it biography. Destined to be one of the Challenger astronauts (that blew up with Christa McAuliffe), Ron loved to read and spent hours and hours in the library reading. Everyone there knew him, but he never took home any books to read. He sat there all those hours reading - because he wasn't allowed to borrow books from the library because of the color of his skin.

One day he decided he'd had enough. He was going to borrow books. He was stubborn. He was polite. The police (who knew and liked him) were called. And the head librarian decided that she would do what was only right - she went into the back room and created a library card for him.

I never even thought about this aspect of racism. It blows me away. I hope we've come a long way since then......