Race for the Sky: The Kitty Hawk Diaries of Johnny Moore
Grade 4-7-Leave it to Gutman to come up with a novel idea for the Wright brothers' centennial. He creates a fictionalized diary, written from the point of view of Nags Head's Johnny Moore, a real person who witnessed the brothers' experiments. Beginning with January 1, 1900, 14-year-old Johnny writes: "Today is the first day of a new century! That's something innit?" At first, he ridicules the blank book his mother has given him, but as he writes in it, he slowly warms to his subject-himself-and his reactions to what is happening around him. Besides describing the peculiar Wright brothers (the "dingbatters"), he discusses the formation of baseball's National League, the transformation of his favorite team into the Chicago Cubs, the assassination of President McKinley, and the ascent of Teddy Roosevelt. Using "local" phrasings and grammatical flaws, Gutman creates a convincing voice for Johnny and embellishes the youngster's relationship with the Wrights and his role in the events. The author includes many of the primary figures in the race to perfect a flying machine; skillfully weaves the scientific principles of flight into the narrative; and also inserts quotes from the brothers, photographs, and newspaper clippings. A section at the end separates fact from fiction and provides a philosophical time line that outlines the "good" and "bad" things that the airplane has wrought. A thoughtful and inventive approach.Harriett Fargnoli, Great Neck Library, NYCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.