If you’re looking for an excellent nonfiction picture book about one of America’s most daring and courageous women to share with children during Women in History month, I highly recommend Night Flight: Amelia Earhart Crosses the Atlantic. The book was written by Robert Burleigh and illustrated by Wendell Minor. It is an outstanding package of text and art that provides a gripping account of Earhart’s historic transatlantic flight from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to a pasture in Northern Ireland in May 1932.
Earhart isn’t out of danger yet. She still has many miles to go before she’ll reach land. Alone in the cockpit, she sniffs salts and sips juice from a can. Around three o’clock, flames stream out of the cracked exhaust pipe. By 6:00 a.m., Amelia’s eyes burn and her stomach “churns from the smell of leaking gas.”
Then…
Black turns to a watery silt. The gloomy sky pales.
Splinters of sunlight stab down through cloud slits
And brace themselves on the vault of the open sea.
Earhart looks out of her cockpit and sees: a boat…a drifting gull…an emerging coastline...train tracks. She finds a smooth pasture where she lands her plane safely.
Two thousand and twenty-six miles. Fourteen
Hours and fifty-six minutes.
Alone.
A great peace wells up.
She knows she has crossed something more than an ocean.
Amelia Earhart had crossed over an ocean and entered into the halls of history. She was the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic—and the very first woman. She was indeed a true American heroine--a brave woman who broke down barriers and pushed the envelope.
Night Flight would be an excellent book to read aloud to children. Burleigh’s text is a concise and dramatic account of Amelia Earhart’s compelling and historic adventure. Wendell Minor’s paintings add to the tension and excitement of the story. He uses two-page spreads with no borders, changing perspectives, close-ups of the Vega and of Amelia in her cockpit, and a dark and foreboding color palette in a number of the illustrations. Minor draw us up into the wide-open sky with Amelia…into the ominous gloom of that stormy and eventful night. He takes us along with a fearless protagonist on her treacherous--and successful--fifteen-hour solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
The back matter of Night Flight includes the following:
- An afterword by the author
- A technical note by the illustrator
- A bibliography
- A list of Internet resources
- A selection of Amelia Earhart quotes.
Book Trailer
Amelia Earhart Last flight video
Amelia Earhart Audio Slideshow: Part 1
Amelia Earhart Audio Slideshow: Part 2
Amelia Earhart Tribute
Amelia Earhart Rare Interview
Amelia Earhart & Her Lockheed Vega (Smithsonian)
Learn More About Amelia Earhart
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Learn More about the Chipko Movement: India’s Call to Save Their Forests
You can see a picture of tree huggers here.
Other Resources
From Wild Rose Reader
Two Books I Recommend for Women’s History Month
The Sky’s the Limit: Stories of Discovery by Women and Girls
Written by Catherine Thimmesh
Illustrated by Melissa Sweet
Houghton Mifflin, 2002
Women written about in this book include:
Vera Rubin—Dark Matter
Denise Schmandt-Besserat—Origins of Writing & Counting
Donna Shirley— Manager of Mars Exploration Team that Built Sojourner Rover
Jane Goodall—Ethologist & Chimpanzee Expert
Mary Anning—Fossil Hunter & Dinosaur Expert
Sue Hendrickson—Fossil Hunter
Anna Sofaer—Discovered the Sun Dagger site in Chaco Canyon & Founder of The Solstice Project
Mary Leakey--Paleoanthropolgist
Chapter Three provides brief glimpses of inquisitive young girls who thought outside the box. The back matter of The Sky’s the Limit includes a Selected Timeline of Discoveries by Women from the 1300s to 2000 and Web site resources.
Look Inside the Book ...
Awards and Honors
2003 Minnesota Book Award for Children's Nonfiction
Smithsonian Notable Book 2002
Outstanding Science and Social Studies Trade Book for Children 2002
Other Resources
Recommended Books from Wild Rose Reader
JULIA MORGAN BUILT A CASTLE
Written by Celeste Davidson Mannis
Illustrated by Miles Hyman
Viking, 2006
Julia’s Early Life
Julia Morgan was born in 1872 and raised in Oakland, California. Her father was an engineer who “enjoyed taking the family on tours through construction sites” in San Francisco. To Julia, the buildings seemed like “huge puzzles”—and she “wanted to know how everything fit together.” Sometimes her family visited her cousin Pierre LeBrun in New York. LeBrun was an architect. He designed the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, one of the first skyscrapers constructed in Manhattan.
It would seem these early experiences must have inspired Julia’s dream of becoming an architect some day. There were no schools nearby that taught architecture so Julia studied engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. She was the only female in her class. There was much to learn and think about: the effect of earthquakes, wind, and gravity on buildings; how to anchor buildings securely to the ground; how beams and columns carry weight; when to use particular types of building materials.
Bernard Maybeck, Julia’s favorite teacher, helped her with math and with putting “the pieces together.”
Maybeck was also an architect. Like Julia’s cousin Pierre, he had studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which was considered “the greatest school of architecture in the world.” Julia went to work for Maybeck after her graduation in 1895—but she still longed to become an architect herself. She wanted to attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, too. Unfortunately, the school did not admit women. When Julia heard word that the school might soon accept female students, she packed her luggage and headed for France.
Julia did not get her wish…right away. The school wouldn’t even allow her to take the entrance exam. That did not deter this determined young woman. She studied for the test anyway. She learned to speak and write in French. She visited museums and palaces and Gothic cathedrals.
Then, more than a year after Julia had arrived in France, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts decided to let her take the entrance exam. In fact, she was required to take it three times! She was finally accepted into the architecture program in the fall of 1898. In 1902, she became the first woman to receive a certificate in architecture.
Julia returned to the United States and opened an “atelier” in San Francisco. One of the commissions she received was from Mills College to design “a lofty bell tower” for the school’s campus. Julia used steel-reinforced concrete in hopes of making it “strong and resistant to fire.” Some doubted the young woman knew what she was doing. They thought building the tower according to her specifications would be too expensive. The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 proved that this woman knew exactly what she was doing. Many of the city’s buildings were reduced to rubble—but not the bell tower. It remained standing—as did all of the other buildings she had designed.
The Castle at San Simeon
In 1919, William Randolph Hearst asked Julia to design a home for land he owned in the Santa Lucia Mountains—a place where he and his family camped in summer. Hearst was delighted with Julia’s plans for his property; a large main house on top of the highest hill, three smaller guesthouses, lush gardens, and a walkway. Much had to be done to prepare the site—including leveling the top of the hill with dynamite. So many workers and artisans were needed at San Simeon, that dormitories had to be built for them—and cooks hired to feed them.
The castle at San Simeon was years in the making. Hearst sometimes made changes. “Once Mr. Hearst had a chimney torn done and moved, then torn down again and put back exactly where it was to begin with.” There were additions to the original plan: a movie theater, an airstrip—and even a zoo!
During the twenty-eight years Julia spent working on Mr. Hearst’s dream home, she also completed projects for other clients. But, as the author writes in the last sentence “the castle Julia Morgan built tells her story to this day.”
An Author’s Note includes further information about Julia Morgan. Some interesting facts about the castle and the rest of the property are provided in a sidebar entitled More about San Simeon.
Miles Hyman's soft-edged, colorful illustrations have an impressionistic look. They're lovely and a fine complement to Mannis's biography of a women, who during her lifetime, designed nearly eight hundred buildings--including a majestic showplace that stands as a symbol of her creativity and talent.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT ALICE?
ALL BY HERSELF: 14 GIRLS WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE
Written by Ann Whitford Paul
Illustrated by Michael Sreirnagle
Brwondeer/Harcourt Brace, 1999
This is a book of poems about fourteen young women—some of whose names may be well known to most of us: Amelia Earhart, Rachel Carson, Sacajawea, Wilma Rudolph, Pocahontas, Wanda Gag, Mary Jane McLeod, and Golda Mabovitch/Golda Meir. Many of us may be less familiar with the names of others: Violet Sheehy, Ida Lewis, Harriet Hanson, Kate Shelley, Maria Mitchell, and Frances Ward.
In free verse poems, Ann Whitford Paul, celebrates the hard work, courage, and accomplishments of these remarkable females. In the back matter of the book, the author includes additional information about each of the “girls.” Each two-page spread includes a boxed poem on the left-hand side and a framed portrait of a young woman, picturing her in a setting emblematic of her early life, her interests and dreams, or a specific event written about in the poem, on the right hand side. Sacajawea is illustrated leading explorers through snowy terrain. Ida Lewis is shown in a rowboat on a rough sea rescuing men whose boat has capsized. Children’s author and illustrator Wanda Gag is pictured with pen in hand drawing a picture, and Maria Mitchell is shown staring through a telescope. Both text and art inform readers about these “14 girls who made a difference.”
A Look at the Poems
SACAJAWEA
From Sacajawea
Long years ago a girl embarked
with two explorers, Lewis and Clark,
to learn about uncharted land…
traveling on for two years’ time,
trudging, tramping day by day,
wending, winding on her way,
with every dauntless step she took,
she walked into our history books.
I highly recommend reading Joseph Bruchac’s well-researched historical novel Sacajawea.
SACAJAWEA
Written by Joseph Bruchac
Scholastic, 2000
MARIA MITCHELL
(Maria, who was mostly self-educated, taught for many years as Professor of Astronomy at Vassar College.)
From Maria Mitchell
With her father, each clear night,
Maria watched the dome of sky,
studying with careful eye,
entranced by every cosmic sight.
He let her use his telescope,
so she could see the lights out far—
the color, gleam of every star.
I recommend reading Maria’s Comet, a picture book about Mitchell that “is fanciful and rich in poetic imagery that will work well for reading aloud” (School Library Journal). The book does have a lovely lyrical text. It includes a note from the author explaining that the book is a work of fiction—but inspired by the life of the real Maria Mitchell. The author also includes a page with information about astronomy terms that were used in the book.
MARIA’S COMET
Written by Deborah Hopkinson
Illustrated by Deborah Lanino
Simon & Schuster, 1999
Here’s how Maria’s Comet begins:
As darkness falls,
Papa goes up to the roof to sweep the sky.
When I was little,
I thought Papa stood on our rooftop
sweeping the stars into place,
with one great whoosh of a broom.
Maria’s father was an astronomer. She learned later that he swept “the sky with a small brass telescope/moving it slowly over the sea of stars/like a sailor scanning the waves.”
KATE SHELLEY
Kate Shelley helped rescue survivors from a train wreck on a railroad bridge during a torrential storm in the summer of 1881. She later received a gold medal from the state of Iowa for the heroism she showed that night.
From Kate Shelley (This poem captures the drama of Kate’s rescue mission.)
The water lapped the railroad bridge.
Her lantern’s small flame quivered. Then it died!
Kate strained to see the ties placed far apart,
stooped down to her knees, and groped through the dark.
Jabbed by splinters, ripped by nails,
she crawled along the planks—across a span, five hundred feet.
Read your students Kate Shelley: Bound for Legend, a fine nonfiction book that tells about Kate’s family life prior to the train wreck and provides a gripping account—in both text and illustrations—of her rescue mission.
KATE SHELLEY: BOUND FOR LEGEND
Written by Robert D. San Souci
Paintings by Max Ginsburg
Dial, 1995
RACHEL CARSON
From Rachel Carson
(This poem speaks of her childhood and how she felt when, at the age of ten, she saw a story she had written published in a children’s magazine.)
So pleased was she to see her words in print,
she knew what she would do
when she was not a child—
she’d write about the flowers
bugs and birds and trees
and all things growing wild.
RACHEL: THE STORY OF RACHEL CARSON
Written by Amy Ehrlich
Illustrated by Wendell Minor
Silver Whistle/Harcourt, 2003
I recommend the beautifully illustrated picture book biography Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson. While not a complete biography, this book gives readers brief glimpses of Rachel at certain times/days in her life: when she won a silver badge for a story she had sent to St. Nicholas Magazine, in a college biology class in 1927, at Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory on Cape Cod in 1929, collecting specimens to study under her microscope along an estuary of the Sheepscot River in Maine in 1953, learning about the aftereffects of spraying insecticides to kill mosquitoes in 1958. It also touches on the discussions that followed the publication of her book Silent Spring and how Congress established committees to investigate the poisons. This book would be a good introduction to Rachel Carson for young people who have probably never heard about this woman who is credited with beginning today’s environmental movement with the publication of Silent Spring.
Wendell Minor’s luminescent one and two-page spreads, done in watercolor and gouache, draw readers into the natural world that Rachel loved so much, into the world she studied and loved to explore.
Click here to read an interview with Amy Ehrlich and Wendell Minor about Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson.
At Blue Rose Girls, I have Forgotten Planet by Doug Dorph.
The Poetry Friday Roundup is at The Simple and the Ordinary.
MORE SPICE THAN SUGAR: POEMS ABOUT FEISTY FEMALES
Compiled by Lillian Morrison
Illustrated by Ann Boyajian
Houghton Mifflin, 2001
This substantial anthology for children in the upper elementary grades and middle school contains forty-five poems about famous women of the past and present: Amelia Earhart, Clara Barton, Molly Pitcher, Anne Frank, oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, Elizabeth Blackwell, Jeanne d’Arc, artist Georgia O’Keeffe, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, and several Olympic medalists It also has poems about women and girls playing sports, traveling west as pioneers, making music—and poems about females with a can do attitude and a desire to achieve. Adult and children’s poets whose works can be found in this book include Emily Dickinson, Stanley Kunitz, Marianne Moore, Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni, Felice Holman, Lillian Morrison, J. Patrick Lewis, X. J. Kennedy, and Ann Turner.
More Spice than Sugar has a nice mix of serious poems and those that are lighthearted in nature. Most of them are written in free verse. Many of the poems Morrison selected for this book can’t be found in other anthologies.
More Spice than Sugar is divided into three sections: When I Am Me, She’s a Winner, and Against All Odds. In the back matter, Morrison includes “Notes” about the real “feisty females” who were written about in the poems.
One of the most touching pieces in the book is Where Are You?, a poem of address in which the writer speaks to Anne Frank. It would be a fine poem to share with children after reading The Diary of Anne Frank or a biography about her.
Here’s an excerpt from the poem:
From Where Are You?
By Marjorie Agosin
(translated from the Spanish by Monica Bruno)
Anne Frank,
though each of us
is not an everlasting flower,
we are looking for you
as though you were still alive,
still sailing along, in your party dress,
putting into shore through
Amsterdam’s canals
and your sparkling bicycle
were still waiting for you on the blue piers.
Here’s an excerpt from another poem in the book about Dr. Sylvia Earle, marine biologist, oceanographer, and author. It would be great to share this poem with students before or after reading one of her nonfiction books for children.
From Sylvia Earle: Deep Ocean Explorer
By Bobbi Katz
Her eyes might gaze
toward
distant
stars,
but not for her the lure of Mars.
She’s challenged by a different place,
just as unknown as outer space.
Not for her the stratosphere
but a life-filled, liquid atmosphere—
where she can…be a pioneer!
Read your students Kathleen Krull’s inspiring picture book biography Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Female and then read them the following poem from More Spice than Sugar: 
From Wilma Rudolph
(Who Won Three Gold Medals in the 1960 Olympics)
By Grace Butcher
She was the one who seemed
to run in the sky
legs from nothing,
from nowhere,
her feet surrounded by air…
Her knees bumped into clouds.
Her arms pushed the wind
out of the way.
Emily Dickinson speaks out to us from the pages of this poetry book:
From [The Poet Emily]
They shut me up in prose—
As when a little Girl
They put me in a Closet—
Because they liked me “still”—
Also included in More Spice than Sugar is Sam Cornish’s poem about Fannie Lou Hamer and voting rights.
From Fannie Lou Hamer
By Sam Cornish
fannie lou
ate
her greens
watched
her land
and wanted
to
vote
men went
to the bottom
of the river
for wanting less
There are also poems that add levity to this anthology—including a humorous one by X. J. Kennedy entitled The Girl Who Makes the Cymbals Bang. The poem is about a young girl who convinces her music teacher that a female has enough strength to crash cymbals together...that a girl can do the job as well as any boy.
From The Girl Who Makes the Cymbals Bang
By X. J. Kennedy
…Though I complained,
Our teacher Mister Cash
Said, “Sorry, girls don’t have the strength
To come up with a crash.”
“Oh yeah?” said I. “Please give them here!”
And there and then, I slammed
Together those brass plates so hard
His eardrums traffic-jammed.
The girl proves her point…and becomes the one to give “each song a real smash ending.”
More Spice than Sugar would definitely make an excellent classroom poetry resource—one tailor-made for Women’s History Month.
Looking for more resources? Check out my earlier post Book Lists & Other Resources for Women’s History Month.
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Learn more about Anne Hutchinson: 
Learn more about Mary Anning