The 1998 title on Neil Armstrong has by now found its way into many young hands. So with a respectful bow to its fresh focus on how a boy's dreams turned into a man's achievements, we leap on to his other offerings about women who startled their contemporaries with their unbridled curiosity resourcefulness, and nerve. Brown doesn't waste words in unnecessary adulation, but lays out the journeys and explorations in the plainest terms. A mile above the ground, Ruth sliced through the frigid winter air at one hundred miles an hour. She set her course by consulting the crude scroll of maps she had taped together and attached to her leg.
Pictures then speak eloquently of the societal and environmental challenges faced.
The four women, nearly interchangeable in features and deportment, are portrayed in filament line and translucent watercolor wash as fragile and vulnerable, neatly capturing the way they were doubtless regarded in their times. Impoverished Anning stands small and forlorn in a claustrophobic court of buildings as neighbors cart away the family furniture. Young Kingsley seems dwarfed by the looming, gloomy gray hulk of her childhood home. Wry, gentle humor suffuses each account, and again illustration rather than text supplies the giggles. Each adventurer, whose deadpan expression remains unruffled by all challenged, is too focused on the task at hand to acknowledge the peril or humor of her immediate situation-peril or humor that is, however, glaringly obvious to the reader.