The Flying Girl: How Aida de Acosta Learned to Soar

by Margarita Engle, Sara Palacios (Illustrator)

Overview

In this beautiful picture book filled with soaring words and buoyant illustrations, award-winners Margarita Engle and Sara Palacios tell the inspiring true story of Aída de Acosta, the first woman to fly a motorized aircraft.

On a lively street in the lovely city of Paris, a girl named Aída glanced up and was dazzled by the sight of an airship. Oh, how she wished she could soar through the sky like that! The inventor of the airship, Alberto, invited Aída to ride with him, but she didn’t want to be a passenger. She wanted to be the pilot.

Aída was just a teenager, and no woman or girl had ever flown before. She didn’t let that stop her, though. All she needed was courage and a chance to try.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481445030
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	03/06/2018
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	776,339
Lexile:	NC1150L (what's this?)
File size:	77 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Margarita Engle is the Cuban American author of many books including the verse novels Rima’s Rebellion; Your Heart, My Sky; With a Star in My Hand; The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor winner; and The Lightning Dreamer. Her verse memoirs include Soaring Earth and Enchanted Air, which received the Pura Belpré Award, a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor, and was a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction, among others. Her picture books include Drum Dream Girl, Dancing Hands, and The Flying Girl. Visit her at MargaritaEngle.com.

Sara Palacios is the recipient of a Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor for Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match and the illustrator of several other picture books, including A Song of Frutas, The Flying Girl, and Martina Has Too Many Tías. Sara graduated with a degree in graphic design and went on to earn BFA and MFA degrees in illustration from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. A native of Mexico, Sara now lives in San Francisco. Visit her at SaraPalaciosIllustrations.com.

Editorial Reviews

02/19/2018
Writing in upbeat, intermittently rhyming verse, Engle tells the true story of Aída de Acosta, an American woman of Cuban and Spanish descent who piloted an early flying machine. While visiting Paris as a teenager, Acosta is awestruck by eccentric inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont’s motorized aircrafts and is determined to pilot one. Despite objections—“Girls, they hollered, should only be allowed/ to learn how to cook, sew, and clean,/ but girls, they bellowed, should never/ be taught how to fly/ huge machines”—Acosta successfully flies a dirigible, landing in a polo field near Paris. Palacios’s mixed-media artwork features ruby and sapphire jewel tones, including in flocks of red birds that accompany Acosta’s journey. Engle delivers a sweetly uplifting story about a girl who “only needed courage and a chance to try.” Ages 4–8. Agent: Michelle Humphrey, Martha Kaplan Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"This story based on the life of a Latina air-and-space pioneer is a welcome addition to the growing list of picture-book biographies of women who defied expectations.

The Horn Book

Playful language with intermittent rhymes and repetition results in an enjoyable easy-to-read biography for young children of a little-known historical figure . . . De Acosta’s determination in making her dream come true serves as an inspiration to young girls: they can soar in whatever endeavor they choose to pursue.

Booklist

Playful language with intermittent rhymes and repetition results in an enjoyable easy-to-read biography for young children of a little-known historical figure . . . De Acosta’s determination in making her dream come true serves as an inspiration to young girls: they can soar in whatever endeavor they choose to pursue.

Booklist

12/01/2017
Gr 2–5—Aída de Acosta's fascination with flying and her determination to do so allowed her to accomplish this very task as a young teenager. She studied under Alberto Santos-Dumont and after various lessons, flew an airship during a sunny day in Paris. Unfortunately, when she landed, she was met by an unruly crowd who shouted insults at her (even her mother was opposed). What were they to think of a woman flying; after all, the year was 1903! In the text, however, Santos-Dumont greets her with kind words: "You're a hero, such a brave inspiration for all the girls of the world!" The mixed-media illustrations flow perfectly with the story and provide a calming tone. This introductory biography will guide readers on their way to finding out more about de Acosta and women in aeronautics in general. The author's note provides valuable information about both de Acosta and Santos-Dumont. VERDICT A great resource for STEM classrooms and readers interested in historical figures who paved the way for modern day pioneers.—Martha Rico, El Paso ISD, TX

School Library Journal

★ 2017-11-22
National Young People's Poet Laureate Engle brings to children the story of Aída de Acosta, who in 1903 became the first woman to fly a motorized aircraft.In her trademark free-verse style, Engle tells the story of Aída, a white Hispanic teenager from New Jersey who, on a trip to Paris, is dazzled by the sight of a balloon gliding by with an air boat dangling beneath and a man inside it. Determined to fly too, Aída approaches the inventor of the airship: Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian inventor known in his country as the father of aviation, achieving flight six months before the Wright brothers. Aída learns to fly, and fly she does, much to the consternation of her contemporaries: "girls, they bellowed, should never / be taught how to fly / huge machines." Palacios' exuberant mixed-media artwork is vibrant and colorful, in tune with Aída. Readers will chuckle at her portrayal of an aerial dinner with the waiters on stilts. In a closing note the author gives additional detail, including Aída's promise to her father that she would keep her daring deed a secret and, later in life, after losing an eye to glaucoma, her becoming the director of the first eye bank in America.A beautiful account of a young woman who knew that all she needed to reach her dream was courage and a chance to try. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews