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This beautifully written and illustrated picture book tells the story of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen, but it’s really a book about following your childhood dreams, even if the dreams seem as out of reach as the sky.
A little boy learns the story of his great, great uncle, who loved to fly. As a child, his uncle’s dream landed him in a pile of hay after leaping from a barn, but later spurred him to become an airman with the 322nd, one of just four African-American squadrons during World War II:
Author Angela Johnson’s poetic language and illustrator Loren Long’s painterly images evoke the peace of flying as well as the “magic” of soaring among the clouds and “into the wind,” as “Uncle” would say.
“It’s what heaven must be,” Uncle says to me.
“With clouds, like soft blankets, saying, ‘Come on in and get warm.
Stay a while and be a
wind flyer too.’”
Johnson, author of many children’s books, is known for featuring African-American characters and addressing real life concerns such as teenage parenthood. She also remembers what it’s like to be a child, creating poignant moments such as when Uncle, as a boy, goes up in a plane with a flying barnstormer:
He cried when they landed
because then he knew
what it was like to go
into the wind,
against the wind,
beyond the wind.
In “Wind Flyers” Johnson addresses the adversities Uncle faced as a man:
He studied hard and flew in a war.
“Air Force didn’t want us at first.
Only four squadrons like us,” he says,
touching his mahogany face.
…Then Uncle points at the picture of him
and the wind flyers,
those smooth wind flyers,
those Tuskegee wind flyers.
“Young and brave. Brave and young, all.”
After the war, Uncle’s passion for flying—real flying—continues. Later, Uncle satisfies his obsession with crop dusting:
That’s the only way he could still fly, the only way he could still catch the clouds and feel the wind.
Uncle passes along his love for flying and an appreciation for the past to his great great nephew…and to the reader:
Then once in a while, he takes me up
And we become the smooth wind flyers
Tuskegee wind flyers
flying into the wind,
against the wind,
beyond the wind,
the magical wind.
—Anne Brennan
Wind Flyers
By Angela Johnson, illustrated by Loren Long
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, January 2007. 32 pages
ISBN-10: 0-689-84879-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-84879-7
Ages: 5 – 9
Grades: K – 4
This Sidetrip is sponsored by The Ohio Center for the Book
