Wilbur Wright Meets Lady Liberty by Robert Burleigh

Abstract

Reviewed by: Wilbur Wright Meets Lady Liberty by Robert Burleigh Elizabeth Bush Burleigh, Robert Wilbur Wright Meets Lady Liberty; illus. by Wendell Minor. Ottaviano/Holt, 2021 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781627793681 $19.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 5-8 yrs Skeptics turned into believers on September 29, 1909, when Wilbur Wright glided into the air over New York Harbor, circled around the Statue of Liberty, and made a perfect landing to the gasps of appreciation of thousands of onlookers, many of whom had doubted this flying thing was for real. Burleigh offers a short account of a short flight but maximizes the tension and triumph by drawing out the details, from Wright's attire ("Has this man—dressed like an ordinary office worker … really invented a machine that can fly?") to the tricky maneuvering around Lady Liberty ("If even one tip of the Flyer's wing touches the stature, he will spin crazily out of control and plunge to his death"). Minor's watercolors situate viewers on the ground, sharing the view, and in the pilot's seat, sharing the challenge. The audience is also privy to fictionalized conversations among a father, mother, and son, each with a different take on Wright's upcoming glory or doom; only deep within the endnotes is the boy identified as Juan Trippe, who actually attended the event and would go on to become a pivotal figure in commercial aviation. Appropriate to the title, Lady Liberty takes pride of place in many scenes. Notes on the Wrights' earlier flights, and the pair of 1909 flights over New York, are appended. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois