Race for the Sky: The Kitty Hawk Diaries of Johnny Moore (Simon and Schuster, 2003) is middle-grade historical fiction as it should be. Author Dan Gutman takes the facts about Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers’ first flight, and weaves them into the journal entries of Johnny Moore, a boy who lived in Nags Head at the time and actually witnessed the first flight.
Through Johnny’s journal we learn all kinds of interesting details and facts, and Race for the Sky makes you see and understand how truly remarkable the Wright Brothers’ feat was.
Here’s an excerpt from a conversation between Johnny and Wilbur Wright:
“Are you a scientist?”
“No,” he says. “I operate a bicycle shop with my brother in Dayton, Ohio.” He tells me that after the summer is over, not many folks in Ohio buy bicycles, so he’s got time to fool round with flyin’ machines and such.
As he’s talkin’ I’m thinkin’ in my head, A BICYCLE SHOP? He runs a bicycle shop, and this dingbatter thinks he’s gonna build a FLYIN’ MACHINE? . . . But I don’t say that.
“You musta gone to some fancy college, eh?” I says.
“The truth be told, I never even graduated from high school.”
Race for the Sky may be a bit slow in the first few chapters, but it quickly turns into an engrossing tale that will leave readers with a new admiration for the story behind one of humankind’s boldest achievements—the ability to fly.
