I’m currently searching for instances of flying in children’s literature. I’m looking for quotes to put on the postcards that will be given out at the children’s poetry event later in March. This is a bit American, but it’s useful. It’s from here:
“Perhaps some of the earliest instances of bonafide airplanes in children’s books appeared in series books. The Boy Aviators, by Captain Wilbur Lawton, and Aeroplane Boys, by Ashton Lamar, both appeared in 1910. These series featured pairs of boys in planes similar to the Wright Flyer. Surprising for the times, the series Girl Aviators, by Margaret Burnham, began the following year. The first book intended for children that gave an account of the Wright brothers may have been The Light Bringers, by Mary Wade, in 1914. It features, along with the Wrights, other notables who, by making “a vastly different world to-day from that of a century ago…have won for themselves the name of Light-Bringers.” This charming volume ends its biography of the Wrights with the speculation that aeroplanes, as weapons of terrible destruction, will someday bring an end to all war.
As a young boy, Charles Lindberg read the story of World War I ace Tam o’ the Scoots, which inspired him to become a fighter pilot. Possibly the earliest children’s book telling his famous story was The Lone Scout of the Sky: The Story of Charles A. Lindbergh, by James E. West, 1927, which included instructions for making a model of the Spirit of St. Louis. Children’s interest in aviation was further encouraged in 1928 by the publication of Books on Aeronautics: A Bibliography of Books Likely to be of Use in Elementary and Secondary Schools, by Roland H. Spaulding. Consisting almost entirely of nonfiction, this annotated list included autobiographies of aviators and World War I aces, model airplane guides, information on gliders and zeppelins, and textbooks on air navigation and the economics of air transportation.
In the 1930s, numerous informational books appeared with illustrations and photographs of the various kinds of aircraft, the history of aircraft, how to fly, and how the world looks from the air. At least two books about Amelia Earhart were published. This decade also marked the very first appearance of Dick and Jane in Dick & Jane’s Our Big Book, which included a scene where the family watches an airplane. Several aviation characters, such as Flying Jenny and Steve Canyon, and space flight heroes such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon appeared in the comic strips before moving on to big little books and comic books.
In the 1940s, children’s books followed developments in military aviation and featured many stories about World War II pilots. At the same time there was no lack of aviation-themed books for younger children, for we see Airplane Andy, by Sanford Tousey, and, possibly the first book to teach young children their ABCs through aviation, The New Alphabet of Aviation, by Edward Shenton.”
the flying machine 