September 1, 2023
Dahl's introduction to a little-known pioneer in aviation history tells the story of a determined, diminutive young woman in the male-dominated world of early-twentieth-century trick flying. After seeing an aeronaut perform at the North Carolina State Fair in 1907, Broadwick (1893-1978) is determined to take to the sky. At the next year's fair, she makes her debut as "The Doll Girl" and begins a career that would include more than eleven hundred jumps from balloons and airplanes and many firsts as a female aeronaut. Notably, a jump gone wrong leads Broadwick to create the ripcord that is still used today. Dahl's fast-paced narrative is interspersed with quotes from her subject ("It burned me up having to dress like a baby doll and having that name tacked on me!") and contemporaries, adding color and immediacy. (While the text does not shy away from some of the difficult aspects of Tiny's life, including her past as a child laborer, it solidly avoids other such biographical details as being a child bride and an abandoned preteen mother.) Joshi's movement-filled illustrations often show Broadwick from the back gazing into the distance, clearly a woman looking toward new horizons. An author's note offers additional history, along with a selected bibliography. Laura Koenig
(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
September 15, 2023
Grades 1-3 *Starred Review* Notable enough as a rare example of a pioneering aviator who actually survived into old age, Georgia Ann "Tiny" Broadwick (1893-1978) also merits the attention Dahl and Joshi give her in this picture-book profile, as she was the first woman to jump from an airplane in flight, the "inventor" of the rip cord (when the rope that was supposed to open her parachute snagged one time on the plane's fuselage and she had to cut herself loose), and (a minute or so afterward) the first to demonstrate that fliers could survive a free fall. Portrayed in the painted illustrations and photos in the afterword as a small but resolute figure, serious of mien and emphatic of gesture, she began her aerial career in 1908, parachuting out of planes or hot-air balloons at state fairs and the like, until forced to retire after over 1,100 drops. The author tucks boxed quotes from her plucky subject into the pithy narrative ("I just hope I live until they get ladies on the moon"). A closing summation notes that, after a period of obscurity, she went on during and after WWII to become an expert consultant and to receive numerous honors and awards. Readers will come away in awe of her outsize courage and determination.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
September 15, 2023
A peek at the woman known as the "First Lady of Parachuting." "Georgia Ann Thompson weighed only three pounds at birth on April 8th, 1893." These words are accompanied by a pleasing, colorful portrait of three reverent people surrounding a woman cradling a baby. The word tiny floats above in a word balloon. Readers learn that the nickname "stuck." Dahl goes on to detail Tiny's life of child labor from the age of 6, culminating with Tiny atop a tree at sunset, envisioning herself "rising up" from a life of poverty. By 1907, she had convinced parachutist Charles Broadwick to teach her to parachute from hot air balloons as part of his traveling act. (Broadwick adopted her.) Her compromise: At age 15, she endured the embarrassment of being dressed as a baby doll and labeled the "Doll Girl." After winning accolades as "the most daring parachutist," Tiny became the first woman to parachute from an airplane and then the first person to deliberately free fall from a parachute. The latter was a dramatic, happy accident that both saved her life and inspired further development of rip cords and of Charles Broadwick's pack parachute invention. Excellent choices of quotations from the brave aeronaut are nicely interspaced with thoughtful, understated text and complementary art. A well-executed biography of an extraordinary woman. (author's note, photographs, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 6-10)
COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
January 1, 2024
Dahl's introduction to a little-known pioneer in aviation history tells the story of a determined, diminutive young woman in the male-dominated world of early-twentieth-century trick flying. After seeing an aeronaut perform at the North Carolina State Fair in 1907, Broadwick (1893-1978) is determined to take to the sky. At the next year's fair, she makes her debut as "The Doll Girl" and begins a career that would include more than eleven hundred jumps from balloons and airplanes and many firsts as a female aeronaut. Notably, a jump gone wrong leads Broadwick to create the ripcord that is still used today. Dahl's fast-paced narrative is interspersed with quotes from her subject ("It burned me up having to dress like a baby doll and having that name tacked on me!") and contemporaries, adding color and immediacy. (While the text does not shy away from some of the difficult aspects of Tiny's life, including her past as a child laborer, it solidly avoids other such biographical details as being a child bride and an abandoned preteen mother.) Joshi's movement-filled illustrations often show Broadwick from the back gazing into the distance, clearly a woman looking toward new horizons. An author's note offers additional history, along with a selected bibliography.
(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)