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Summary
Summary
Born to Fly tells the story of eleven-year-old tomboy Bird McGill. Ever since she can remember, Bird has loved flying in small propeller airplanes with her mechanic dad. When the local airstrip is turned into a military flight school, Bird is in heaven. But when a young Japanese American student named Kenji Fujita joins Bird's class, the entire school seems to be convinced that he's a spy, or at the very least, that he and his uncle want the Japanese to win. Bird is wary of Kenji, not just because he's Japanese, but because he steals her flight-related topic for a school report and leaves her to write about the deadly boring local marsh weed. But on Bird's first trip to the marsh, she and Kenji accidentally discover real spy activity in the area. Bird realizes that Kenji is actually a stand-up guy--and she and Kenji begin an adventure that will shake the town and may even change the future of the United States.
Winner of the Dell Yearling Contest
Summary
Born to Fly tells the story of eleven-year-old tomboy Bird McGill. Ever since she can remember, Bird has loved flying in small propeller airplanes with her mechanic dad. When the local airstrip is turned into a military flight school, Bird is in heaven. But when a young Japanese American student named Kenji Fujita joins Bird's class, the entire school seems to be convinced that he's a spy, or at the very least, that he and his uncle want the Japanese to win. Bird is wary of Kenji, not just because he's Japanese, but because he steals her flight-related topic for a school report and leaves her to write about the deadly boring local marsh weed. But on Bird's first trip to the marsh, she and Kenji accidentally discover real spy activity in the area. Bird realizes that Kenji is actually a stand-up guy--and she and Kenji begin an adventure that will shake the town and may even change the future of the United States.
Winner of the Dell Yearling Contest
Author Notes
Michael Ferrari lives in Avon Lake, Ohio, where he is a teacher. Born to Fly is his first novel.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Ferrari's novel, which won the Delacorte Yearling Prize for debut middle-grade authors, takes readers on a high-flying, nail-biting historical adventure that is uplifting and just good fun. Set during WWII in a sleepy Rhode Island town, Ferrari's story is narrated by an imaginative preteen girl whose nothing-can-stop-me attitude will appeal to readers of both sexes. Sixth-grader Bird McGill loves flying airplanes with her dad. But when he joins the war effort, Bird feels like she's lost her only ally. Then Kenji, a guarded Japanese boy, shows up in her class. As he becomes an even bigger outcast and bully-target than her ("Why don't you go home to Japland," sneers a classmate), Bird reluctantly befriends him. Together, Bird and Kenji stumble upon suspicious activity in their hometown and vow to unravel the mystery. Ferrari weaves in period details, but wisely keeps the focus on the duo's antics and fragile, budding friendship. As danger grows, so does their trust in and reliance on each other. Readers will be anxious to learn the fate of these two daring kids and the spy they are determined to derail. Ages 8-12. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) Set at the onset of World War II (the bombing of Pearl Harbor happens at the end of the first chapter), Ferrari's debut novel is chock-full of both action and theme. Eleven-year-old Bird, known for her overactive imagination, has few -- okay, make that no -- friends. Only her mechanic father understands her and her passion for flying. When he joins up and is sent overseas, Bird feels lost, so when a stranger comes to her small Rhode Island town, she's ripe for companionship. This new friend is Kenji, who, in the parlance of the book and the times, is a "Jap"; his parents are imprisoned in Manzanar and, yes, he's distrusted by the locals. While fishing on the Atlantic shore, the two spot a submarine, but their story is dismissed as a ridiculous tale from two misfits seeking attention. In fact, there is a spy in their midst, with plans to kill President Roosevelt. Bird and Kenji uncover the spy's identity and thwart the plan, with Bird taking the wheel of a P-40 Warhawk fighter plane in a race to save the president. There's enough detail about the times, the characters, and the airplanes to keep the narrative from becoming too over-the-top -- but just barely. All in all, it's a spirited flyover of the home front, family tragedy, and national prejudice. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
The winner of the Delacorte Yearling Prize for a First Middle-Grade Novel combines a sympathetic, unusual heroine with a spy drama set on the home front during World War II. On December 7th, 1941, just as the family gets ready to cut the cake for Bird McGill's eleventh birthday, President Roosevelt announces the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Things change quickly in Bird's hometown in coastal Rhode Island. Her father joins the Air Force, and when a Japanese American boy named Kenji, whose parents are in an internment camp, joins her class, everyone is sure that he and his uncle are spies. Kenji and Bird's efforts to convince the authorities of an ongoing spy conspiracy bring them closer together, but then Kenji's uncle becomes the main suspect in a murder and sabotage case at the local plane-engine factory. Will Bird be able to collect enough evidence to bring the truth to light? Ferrari's fast-paced plot and well-developed characters will keep readers engaged until the last page.--Schroder, Monika Copyright 2009 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5 Up-Ferrari's debut novel (Delacorte, 2009) takes place in a small Rhode Island town at the time Pearl Harbor is bombed and the United States enters World War II. Bird is just turning 11, has a passion for flying airplanes, and wants to be a fighter pilot when she grows up. When Kenji, a Japanese-American boy, enters Bird's class, everyone thinks that he and his uncle are spies. Bird befriends him, and they discover evidence of an enemy submarine in the area. The story features men leaving for war and, sadly, never coming back; a draft dodger; and a Nazi spy who is hidden in plain sight. There's plenty of adventure in this action-packed story, including a local murder solved by Bird and Kenji. Listeners get a complete home front experience, including a nod to the popular culture of the times with references to Abbot and Costello, John Wayne, the Andrew Sisters, and the popular The Green Hornet radio program. Narrator Rachel Dulude does an eloquent job of portraying Bird's range of emotions as the girl processes life-changing events, and her use of tone and pacing helps listeners keep track of a full cast of characters. There's a thorough endnote that delivers historical facts as they relate to the story. Highly recommended for all libraries and for fans of Patricia Reilly Giff's Lily's Crossing (Delacorte, 1997).-Terri Norstrom, Cary Area Public Library, IL (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Eleven-year-old outcast Bird McGill feels she was born to fly. Luckily, her father's work as a plane mechanic gives her the opportunity. In her small Rhode Island town, her imaginative stories aren't taken seriously, but she really did see an enemy submarine in the bay in 1942. When she and her new friend, Kenji Fujita, try to take its picture, she stumbles onto a corpse and a murderous spy. It is her passion for the P-40 airplane flown by pilots at a nearby airfield that keeps other lives from being lost. Ferrari successfully recreates a time early in World War II, when anti-Japanese sentiment was high and fathers went to war and didn't always return. Birdie's first-person voice is convincing, and the narrative moves briskly. With this debut, the author aims to provide the kind of adventure for girls that boys often enjoy in children's books. Middle-grade readers of either gender looking for suspenseful historical fiction won't notice that the combination of events adds up to an unlikely story, but they will enjoy Bird's flight. (Historical fiction. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
CHAPTER 1 Just 'cause I was a girl in 1941, don't think I was some sissy. Shoot, I saw stuff that would've made that bully Farley Peck pee right through his pants. Like summer, the year before. That's when me and my best friend Wendy saw the Genny, the giant man-eating sea serpent that lived in Geneseo Bay. Except Wendy didn't get a good look like I did. To tell you the truth, I don't think she really saw anything, she just said she did to back me up. That's what friends do. But then Wendy's dad got a job building roads, or houses, or something with the Work Projects Administration, and they moved to Wisconsin. It didn't really matter, because no one believed me anyway. I was always seeing stuff that no one else did. Mom thought I probably just needed glasses, but my dad said it was because I had "imagination." Once, when I was two, they found me way up on the roof of our barn. Dad said I must have flown up there. That's how I got my name. "What do you think, Bird?" "This is the best birthday present ever, Dad." We were flying above the clouds in Mr. Watson's yellow Piper. I guided the small propeller plane so that it moved through the air just like an eagle. Seeing me in my World War One pilot's skullcap and goggles and my Huck Finn dungarees, you would've never guessed that someone with a neat name like Bird McGill was actually just an eleven-year-old girl. But I was. I worked the controls carefully, scanning the skies for bogies at twelve o'clock. "She's no Warhawk, but she sure beats that puddle jumper we had last year," Dad told me. My dad was a mechanic, the best one around. He could fix just about anything, but his favorite things were airplanes. He had rebuilt Mr. Watson's airplane carburetor last month. "Mr. Watson says we can take her up anytime," Dad said. This wasn't the first time I'd been up in a plane. Dad had taken me up plenty of times. My big sister Margaret was afraid to go and my little brother Alvin was still too young. Mom flew with us sometimes, but she didn't like it like I did. Plus, when Mom wasn't around and it was just the two of us, Dad would let me take the controls. I knew just about all there was to know about flying. You have to watch your airspeed and your altimeter (that's what tells you how high you are). You've got to know how to ride your rudder, adjust your trim and throttle, and know just how much flaps to use when taking off and landing. My favorite airplane was the P-40 Warhawk. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Someday, I was gonna fly one. See, every airplane needs wings and a tail. The wings need flaps, and the tail needs a rudder. And it's a good idea to have wheels, if you ever hope to land and take off again. But you can hardly call it an airplane if it doesn't look like it was born to fly. An airplane can only fly as good as it looks. My dad said it's like falling in love. If one look at the plane doesn't make you want to shoot up into the clouds, the plane's hardly worth talking about. Down below us was Geneseo, the town where we lived. It's in the state of Rhode Island. Funny thing is, Rhode Island isn't an island at all. An island has water on all sides, like Hawaii or Treasure Island. But we only had water on one side. We lived near the ocean, but thanks to the bay, which hooked around like a big arm, we could swim and fish and the water never got too rough, like it did farther out in the Atlantic Ocean. My dad's name was Peter. That was what Mom called him when she was scared or mad, or didn't want him to let me do something that she thought was too dangerous or un_lady_like (like flying an airplane). My dad was handsome, with strong arms and a big, easy smile. I liked the way he looked at me when I was flying. Like he was proud. When you're flying and you look down, everything looks different. All the stuff you thought was so big, or scary, is just small. Underneath us, Geneseo was laid out like a map, with Main Street dividing the town in half. On the north side were the bay, the airfield, our house, and the Widow Gorman's farm. On the other side were nine or ten clusters of houses in little rows. Main Street was crooked, and from up here it looked like a lazy snake. It was lined with two wavy rows of maple trees planted by Ruth Geneseo more than two hundred years ago to welcome her husband home from the Indian Wars. The story goes, Ruth couldn't see too well, so the trees weren't exactly in a straight line. But her husband, Wilford, thought they were the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. He built a hotel at the end of the road so that everyone would get to walk right between the two rows of trees whenever they came to town. To my left I saw the white roof of the courthouse, then a dull red box that must have been the school, and finally the pointy spire of the church. Below my right wing I could even see two men fishing from a rowboat in the bay, far below. Excerpted from Born to Fly by Michael Ferrari All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
