Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator
By Shelley Tanaka; illustrations by David Craig
Abrams Books for Young Readers; $18.95
48 pp.; ISBN-13: 978-0810970953

Review by Amy Brozio-Andrews

In a children's book that manages to be informative, entertaining, and inspiring, Shelley Tanaka relates the story of famed American aviatrix Amelia Earhart from her childhood through her last flight over the Pacific. Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator chronicles her life and flying accomplishments until her final 1937 flight.

Beginning with her Atchison, Kansas childhood, we see Amelia as an inquisitive, adventurous child who, along with her sister, believed they could do anything the boys could do (they even got the footballs they asked for for Christmas one year). A visit to an air show in California when she was a young adult prompts her to ask her father to arrange an airplane ride for her (she was too shy to do it herself). This one ride ignited a lifelong passion for flying that ended only with her 1937 attempt to fly around the world that resulted in her disappearance at sea near Howland Island in the South Pacific.

In addition to her aviation work and efforts to persuade people that flying was perfectly safe, Amelia Earhart also worked hard to advance the idea that women were just as capable as men, not only in aviation but in anything else they set their minds to, with everything she did in service to those two goals.

Shelley Tanaka's immensely readable story makes liberal use of Amelia Earhart's own words (from her books and letters and interviews) in describing the experience of flying. From describing clouds as "shimmering veils" and "little lambs" to the Golden Gate Bridge as a "thread of steel" with commuting vehicles as "tiny beetles crawling home," Earhart's own poetic writing makes her experiences even more vivid.

Tanaka never minimizes the danger that the early days of flying posed nor does she sensationalize it, from broken or defective instruments to crashes, to flying instrument-less through fog or night. From Amelia Earhart's own log from her first transatlantic flight in 1932, those recovering the wreckage in the event that she crashed were directed to "know that nonsuccess was caused by my getting lost in the story for an hour."

Numerous photographs of Amelia Earhart are complemented by David Craig's rich artwork that re-imagines several scenes from her life. The comprehensive list of books, articles, and websites included in the list of references at the back of the book, many of them Amelia Earhart's own works, offer young readers whose interest is piqued a ready-to-go list of places to get more information. Sidebars about Earhart's contemporaries -- both other female aviators of the day and other pilots' journeys around the world -- offer historical context and texture to the story that a straight narrative might not have otherwise had.

By focusing on her life instead of her disappearance (while acknowledging the various theories and evidence that has arisen since 1937), Tanaka's biography of Amelia Earhart is a celebration of her achievements and the inspiration she gave to boys and girls around the world, an inspiration that continues today with books like this one that are sure to intrigue young readers interested in tales of adventure.