Russell Freedman (1929–2018)

A Newbery Honor-winning biography of the men whose experiments brought about the Age of Flight.
This engaging narrative account of Orville and Wilbur Wright, two men with little formal schooling but a knack for solving problems, follows their interest from a young age in the developing field of aeronautics. Russell Freedman’s writing brings the brothers’ personalities to life, enhancing the record of events with excerpts from the brothers’ writing and correspondence, and accounts of those who knew them.
Chronicling their lives from their early mechanical work on toys and bicycles through the development of several flyers, The Wright Brothers follows the siblings through their achievements—not only the first powered, sustained, controlled airplane flight, but the numerous improvements and enhancements that followed, their revolutionary airplane business, and the long legacy of that first brief flight.
Illustrated with numerous historical photographs—many taken by the Wright brothers themselves—this is a concise, extremely reader-friendly introduction to these important American inventors.
Includes a note on the Wright brothers’ photographs, as well as recommendation for further reading and learning.… (mehr)

Honestly, as I read this I was thinking how it stacked up against last year's [b:The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club|25445456|The Boys Who Challenged Hitler Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club|Phillip M. Hoose|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1430245146s/25445456.jpg|42246997]. And I was thinking about how those saboteur Churchill Club boys were more exciting than the pamphleteer Scholl siblings. But then I got to the end of this book and BAM. Whoa. I teared up. I felt awful for thinking for even a minute that the White Rose story was tame by comparison. If I had known from the beginning how it ended for Sophie and Hans I think I would've read the story in a different light.

Beyond my personal reaction, I think this story is told with admirable precision (I read it in about an hour) which makes it appealing for younger readers. But there are some very rattling, morbid parts of the story that make me think it's generally best for 6th grade and up.

You could definitely have quite a discussion around the themes, particularly how the Scholl siblings both professed to know right from wrong by looking inside themselves. Do human beings have an innate sense of good and evil? Or can we only know what we're taught? Hans Scholl: "I'm searching for myself, just myself, because this much I do know; I'll only find the truth inside me." Sophie Scholl: "We carry all our standards within ourselves, only we don't look for them closely enough. Perhaps because they are the severest standards."… (mehr)