I am halfway done with the 2013 Caudillsv! Okay, slightly more than halfway because today I give you number eleven, a novel about a tomboy living on the East Coast during World War II. Bird is an eleven-year-old girl with a yearning to take to the wild blue yonder. Her role-model, after her beloved father, is Amelia Earhart. In fact, her goal in life is to take to the skies in search of the missing pilot. Bird is certain she is alive and well somewhere.
Bird does not like to wear dresses and the other girls don’t accept her because she is different. Bird does like flying and telling tall tales, but first, the flying. Bird’s father is a pilot and a mechanic. Whenever he has an opportunity to take to the air, it is likely that he takes Bird with him. And he has been teaching her how to fly all along. At eleven, the only thing she hasn’t accomplished is the art of landing.
Now the tall tales. Bird has the habit of embellishing. She has a tendency to see things that no one else witnesses. Take the Genny for instance. Consider it the Loch Ness Monster of Geneseo Bay, Rhode Island. Bird claims to have seen it, but as you can guess, no one will believe her. So when she witnesses a miniature submarine in the bay, she figures no one will believe that either. Nor the dead body beneath the boat. Nor the man in black she bit who threatened her family’s lives.
There is at least one spy in Geneseo, and if Bird goes to anyone and tells them what she knows, her family is in danger. It is a good thing she is well aware that no one will listen to her. However, there is one person who is depending upon her to come forward. Her new (best?) friend.
With the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans are being rounded up and placed in internment camps on the West Coast. But East Coast persons of Japanese descent are not. Because Kenji’s parents will be detained in California, they send him to live with his uncle – in Geneseo. But he is no more welcome there than at home in Hollywood even though he is an American boy through and through. He can jitterbug and he loves John Wayne.
Kenji and Bird suddenly hit it off as they are both targeted by the class bully. Together they can either stand up to him or escape him. Kenji knows what Bird saw and he believes her. When the P-40 Warhawk factory is sabotaged and explodes, all fingers point to Kenji’s uncle who is known to build fireworks for the Fourth of July. Bird is the only person with the information that can save him from a life in prison, but at great risk to her family.
Bird is holding out until her father comes home on military leave to stand up for what is right. She believes he can take care of everything and put everything to rights while protecting the family at the same time. Unfortunately, this won’t happen and Bird will have to take matters into her own hands. This includes commandeering a P40-Warhawk. She’s committed the manual to memory, but she was prevented from reading the last chapter on landing…
This is a sweet story if a little over-the-top and unbelievable. It did take a while to get into. It didn’t grab me from the beginning. A book that World War II buffs, usually boys, would enjoy. I wonder if the heroine, no matter how tomboyish she is made to be, will turn them off. Tween girls who like action and adventure might enjoy it as well. But if you have a girl who loves airplanes, I’d highly recommend Flygirl by Sheri L. Smith which was on the Caudill list last year. That heroine actually got to fly planes for the military!
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