Book Review: Amelia Earhart by Carol Ann Pearce.
Amelia Earhart was around long before my time, but after reading this book I feel like her story happened just recently. Back in the early 1900's women were not known to be adventuresome and therefore one forgets about the time period when reading this book. Amelia was an extremely significant woman who achieved great success and paved the way for women who came along after her.
Born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, Amelia was a daredevil by the age of 7. She built a "roly" consisting of two-by-four planks for the tracks and roller skates nailed to shorter boards. This was then affixed to the roof of a shed and extended to the ground. (I find it interesting that a child of seven years of age could have the means and the know how to build a "roly" with the help of only her sister and a neighborhood boy.) This clearly demonstrates the fact that Amelia was not an ordinary child but rather someone with a vision and great things to come.
This book does a good job of showing Amelia's life as a pioneer. She was a very spirited girl, and she didn't accept the explanation that girls just shouldn't do things simply because they were girls. This is demonstrated in the fact that the neighborhood boy thought he should go first on the "roly" because he was a boy. Amelia refused and went first cutting her lip on the landing but nevertheless saw her project to fruition. .
As Amelia got older her love of flying became stronger. It is interesting to read about the myths of women and flying. According to the myths of that time period, women were unable to withstand the speed that an airplane could fly and people feared that women might "domesticate flying" (p 44). Amelia, being the adventurous women that she was, simply wanted to learn to fly. .
Amelia had many interests and was planning to go to medical school. She took classes in engine repair, which at the time was not something many women did, and classes in French poetry and even taught herself to play the banjo.