Childrens Literature and Literacy

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======= Book Title =======

Amelia Earhart: Little People, Big Dreams By Isabel Sanchez Vegara

====== Introduce the Book =====

A biography about the life of Amelia Earhart, the most famous female pilot of the 20th Century. 

===== Summary =====

Amelia Earhart first became interested in planes after seeing an airshow when she was 20 years old. After being mesmerized a pilot gave her a ride in a plane. From that moment on, she knew she wanted to fly. She began taking flying lessons and bought her first plane six months later. Amelia set a new womans world record of flying 14,000 feet. She was also the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. Amelia became the president of an organization that supported female pilots. In 1937, she decided to try and fly around the world. At some point she reported her gas was running low, and that was the last they heard from her. Amelia never returned. There was a big search team for her, but she and her plane were never found. 

==== Share Your Favorite Part ====

I really like how this book was a children's book in the beginning. It had illustrations, the tragedy was explained in an innocent way, and the story was told simply. The last page though, was a timeline and a more in-depth explanation of her life. I felt like that was a nice touch to the book. If adults were reading this to their children, they can read that timeline at the end and get more in-depth information about her life. I also liked how the book did not say take her disappearance so seriously. They wrote it in such a nonchalant way, so it wouldn't make young children feel sad.  


==== Give a Recommendation ====

I really loved this book. Even though death is not that big of a deal, some children still do not understand it. I really like the way this book dealt with explaining her death. Books that share influential events, like 9/11, or influential people like Amelia, are important. It is also important authors of these books craft them in such a way that we are still shielding the children of the bad in the world, but just giving them a little taste of what actually happens, while still keeping that innocence factor. I thought the story was told in a cute way and I enjoyed the timeline element at the end. This is definitely a good biography to introduce to a young group of children.