▶▶▶ Great Price for $5.87

Flygirl Review

FLYGIRL is, quite simply, remarkable. It succeeds on many levels: as history of a little known aspect of World War II, as insight into being a patriotic black woman who yearns for the white male world of flying, and best of all, as pure, engrossing story.

Sherri L. Smith has clearly done her research in depicting the WASP experience, and she brings Ida Mae and her friends to vivid life. The world Ida Mae inhabits at the beginning of WWII is very limiting for too many people. By the end of the story, it's clear the world has changed. Ida Mae is not going to go back to cleaning houses, and I like to think of her creating a path that will let her fly not as a "colored" girl passing for white, but as simply Ida Mae Jones, pilot.

I noticed that an earlier review by a flying buff criticized the story for not showing pre-flight checks, but the gentleman must not have read carefully. The flight checks are there, and given exactly as much weight as they deserve by showing that the girl pilots know what they're doing.

I look forward to reading more of Sherri L. Smith's book

Flygirl Feature

ISBN13: 9780399247095
Condition: New
Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Flygirl Overview

Ida Mae Jones dreams of fl ight. Her daddy was a pilot and being black didn’t stop him from fulfilling his dreams. But her daddy’s gone now, and being a woman, and being black, are two strikes against her.

When America enters the war with Germany and Japan, the Army creates the WASP, the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots—and Ida suddenly sees a way to fl y as well as do something signifi cant to help her brother stationed in the Pacific. But even the WASP won’t accept her as a black woman, forcing Ida Mae to make a difficult choice of “passing,” of pretending to be white to be accepted into the program. Hiding one’s racial heritage, denying one’s family, denying one’s self is a heavy burden. And while Ida Mae chases her dream, she must also decide who it is she really wants to be.

Available at Amazon Check Price Now!

Customer Reviews

Kindle Price - Jennifer Kammer - Greenville, SC United States
I am so tired of seeing the Kindle price for a book that is higher than the hardback price on Amazon.

Great read- very original storyline - G. Bowerbank -
This book as an original storyline, with unexpected events. The cahracters are well developed, whome you grow to love, even though they all have their weaknesses. The writing was beautiful. Love it!

Good book for the feelings of a WASP member - William A. Hensler - Holt, Michigan United States
Sherri Smith has written a young adult book. Her audience is aimed at either young women or women. So, having a regular "guy" read her book isn't her target audience. This reviewer saw it at the library, read the title and thought "why not?"

This review will give Ms. Smith credit. She makes a plausable story on how "Ida May" joins the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Ida is a light skinned African American and manages to join the WASP. Her story is based somewhat on Janet Harmon Bragg, an African American rejected for the WASP because of her skin color. This reviewer works with light skinned African-Americans and they could pass for either Italian or Semetic. Indeed, one of Ida's former instructors is enthralled with her looks and dances with her at an after graduation party.

This book is written for 12 year old young women and it's a little weird reading for either young men or normal guys. This reviewer worked for years in aviation and am still current with modern and WWII aircraft. Not once in the book does Ida do a pre-flight check and if you want to read a book on aircraft then try this: Flying American Combat Aircraft of Ww II: 1939-1945 (Stackpole Military History Series). Also, there is no mention of being check out on any aircraft. The WASPs in this book go from aircraft to aircraft and have no specialized training on any of them. In real life the WASPs always were getting checked out on aircraft. A guy will wish that Ida had taken at least one introductory flight on an aircraft they were to take on normal ferry missions. It would have improved the story. Also, in real life most of the WASP "ferry" flights were taking the P-63 fighter from east coast factories to the west coast where they were given to the Russians for their fight against Germany. Here are the rules. If you get checked out for single engine aircraft you generally just fly single engine aircraft. If you get check out for multi-engine aircraft (bombers or transports) then you generally stay in multi-engines.

I will give Ms. Smith credit about including the A-25 "Shrike" dive bomber in target towing duties that Ida flies. The A-25 was a late 1930s design, not as good as the German JU-87 Stuka dive bomber, and never saw any combat because it would have been a death trap in combat. Ms. Smith writes a fairly humorous part of her book about a Shrike engaged in target towing, a 90mm anti aircraft battery starts shooting at the aircraft instead of the target, blows a hole in the wing, and Ida manages to land to chew out the gunnery OIC of the battery. Shrikes were used in second rate jobs in '41 to '44. Occasionally an anti-aircraft battery would screw up and blast the towing aircraft out of the sky. Ms. Smith does not know the American 90mm was a fearsome anti-aircraft weapon and instead of just knocking a hole in the wing the shell would have shredded the whole aircraft (with the usual fatal results to the pilot). This idiocy happens in training a lot. I liked that story.

Ms. Smith devotes nearly a whole chapter of the book about a dangerous encounter Ida has at a hardware store. An elderly African-American man is given quite a bit of grief by the store owners. Ida goes in and buys some minor items. At the same time she is indignant towards the treatment of the old man by the white store woners. Her efforts do help the man but he warns her that her game is being stretched to the limit. Somebody could eventually see through her subterfuge. In the old South that would have at least resulted in a beating.

Ms. Smith is an avid reader and it shows through in her writing. But a normal pilot would wish that Ida would just run through one - just one - pre-flight check. Now, since Ida and her friend, Jane, later fly a B-29 Bomber and that bomber took at least two hours to do a pre-flight-check then such a thing should have been added to a book. One of the preceeding aircraft of the B-29, the B-19, was lost because the crew didn't do a pre-flight check properly and the control locks were left on the aircraft and that ends with fatal results to the crew. The point is pre-flight checks are important and Ms. Smith should have at least once written about it.

Ida and her co-pilot survive flying the B-29 after an engine fails. This reviewer would have loved to have seen the words "Wright radial engine" to show there was at least some basic research. Also, there is an analogy made between the B-29 and B-26. The B-26 was called the "Widowmaker", but was more commonly called the "flying prostitute" because the short wings of the aircraft make it seem like it had no visible means of support. Anyway, the problem of the B-26 is it you lost an engine on take off or landing the aircraft would spin in and kill the crew. The problems of the B-29 related to two problems: the early Wright engines could catch fire and ignite the hundreds of gallons of gasoline stored in the wings, the other problem was the propellors would suddenly "reverse" pitch in the air. The latter problem could be fatal on take off or landing. If two propellors reversed in regular flight the stress could cause the airframe to fail (with the usual fatal results for the pilots). Also, an inference is made in the book that the USAAF general staff knew the B-29 was to be able to carry the A-bomb. That is not the case. The B-29 was just a complex bomber and could carry no greater weapons load than the British Lancaster bomber. The B-29 just had a lot greater range. Indeed, the initial logic of the B-29 was it was to have been used against Germany in long range mission flow from America.

A comment is made by a United States Army Air Force officer that the WASP were more expendable than the typical Army Air Force Pilots. That isn't quite true. The USAAF lost over 18,000 Army Air Force personnel from 1943 to 1945 in the fighting over Europe (in just one raid, on Date 14 October 1943 in Schweinfurt, Germany
had the worst USAAF losses to that date: 77 bombers and about 650 crewmembers). The Army Air Force was running out of men to use for aircraft testing. When a man has a 1 in 10 chance of getting shot down in a bombing mission then having them test the B-29 - which in 1943 was not at all a combat asset - didn't seem like a good allocation of resources.

A friend, Patsy, is lost when her BT-13 trainer loses an engine in a landing. While Patsy's aircraft is seen to have mechanical problems there is little actually written about the event. It occupies barely half a page before Patsy's unfortunate aircraft pancakes into the runway tarmac in a fireball.

There are a few problems with this book in the aircraft designation department. The T-6 Texan (or Harvard, depends on the type) advanced trainer of WWII had some number converted to the AT-6 Korean war aircraft and that was not used for the attack mode until the early 1950s era. The Curtiss-Jenny was used for some crop dusting in the 1920s. But it's airframe was not up to the task of crop dusting and they were largely replaced by biplanes that resembled the PT-19 that Ida was later trained to operate. (Indeed, post WWII the PT-19 aircraft were converted to be the bulk of the crop dusters in the '50s and '60s). Few, if any, of the cheaply made c. 1917 era Jennies made it to the 1941 period. The cotton covering on the wings rotted off. Also, termines loved the wood of the airframe.

Young women will read this book and may be inspired to follow the example of Ida and follow a career into aviation. The real aviation "geeks" who live to read about aircraft, flying, and aviation will have to find their "fix" elsewhere.

Still, this is a fair book for a typical young adult if they want to explore the fictional feelings of a WASP in World War Two. They will learn about the discrimination the African-Americans faced in WWII and some of the conditions the women aviators had to endure.

If a young adult wants to read a true story of WWII from a 12 year old's point of view then try this excellent book. German Boy: A Child in War

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 10, 2010 20:53:05

Children's Books

Tuesday, August 10, 2010