Skies Over Sweetwater - Softcover

Moberg, Julia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0979237122 ISBN 13: 9780979237126

Publisher: Keene Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

In 1944, eighteen-year-old Bernadette (Bryd) Thompson leaves her Iowa home and attends training camp for the Women Airforce Service Pilots in Sweetwater, Texas, where she hones her flying skills and befriends women of different backgrounds.

About this title

About the Author

Julia Moberg is the author Skies Over Sweetwater, Presidential Pets, Historical Animals, and Animal Heroes. Hailing from Michigan and Texas, author Julia Moberg attended NYU where she earned both her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in dramatic writing. Julia learned of the WASP program, and impressed with the courage and fortitude of these pioneering women, she focused her writing skills on bringing this important part of American history to light. Skies over Sweetwater captures the essence of their lives and brings the story, in a very accessible format, to today's readers. Julia continues to be amazed that so few people know that women flew for the Air Force during WWII. She hopes that this book might change that, and give the WASP pilots much deserved recognition. Julia lives in Kirkland, Washington.

Reviews

Grade 8 Up—It's 1944, and 18-year-old Byrd Thompson, an Iowa farm girl, dreams of becoming an Air Force pilot. Her mother and sister are against it because her father died eight years earlier in a small plane crash. Having secretly earned her pilot's license and scraped together some money by giving lessons, Byrd leaves home to join the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX. There she is assigned to Bay 4 with spunky Sadie; Southern-belle Cornelia; Chinese-American Opal; Deirdre (whose brother is a POW); and Jean, who fails the first flight test and is sent home. Learning to fly "the Army way" is not easy, but Byrd is determined, and grouchy Major Pickett is a demanding teacher. More motivation is provided by handsome Lieutenant Andrews and the encouragement of Byrd's friends. The prose is sometimes awkward, and Byrd's reunion with her family is abrupt and anticlimactic, but her story is compelling, and it sheds light on a little-known piece of American history. It should serve as an inspiration to anyone who dreams of doing the unconventional.—Laurie Slagenwhite, Baldwin Public Library, Birmingham, MI
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The train pulls up to the station, right on time. The conductor helps lug my trunk up the stairs and into my compartment. I sit down on the gorgeous plush red velvet bench where I will be spending the next 12 hours. I run my fingers over it, realizing how long it has been since I felt anything so wonderful. Outside the window the Iowa sun is starting to come up all purple and orange over the horizon. I think about Mom and my sister, Charlotte, and I wonder if they are awake yet and if they've noticed I'm gone. And then I think about Pa, and it hurts, so I open my trunk and find my favorite and only book I own, West with the Night, by Beryl Markham. I get lost reading about her adventures flying her plane across the Atlantic. Then, without realizing it, I am asleep. I can never sleep long because the fire always comes. When I doze off, my eyes fill up with orange and red. They burn, and someone is always screaming my name, and my head feels like it's going to explode. Right before it does, I wake up. For a moment I am disoriented and forget where I am until the grumbling clatter of the engine jogs my memory, reminding me that I'm on the train. I shake the fire out of my head. My stomach is growling and sore with hunger, so I pull out the apple I pocketed. I am about to take a bite when I look up and become aware of a set of eyes watching me attentively. A girl is sitting across from me. She is around eighteen, the same age as me. Her hair is a bright shade of auburn-red and her eyes are the color of ginger. She's wearing a crisp white blouse tucked into a pair of blue pants and freshly polished black and white saddle shoes. I stare at her, realizing I had never seen a girl wearing pants before. Mom would be appalled. "Got any more food on you?" she suddenly asks, her eyes fixated on the apple in my hand. Takes me a moment to remember that I also brought a banana. I rummage through my bag and hand it to her. She peels it open and then looks down at my book, which has fallen onto the floor between us. She reaches and picks it up. "Beryl Markham sure is fearless isn't she? Imagine, being the first to fly across the Atlantic. I've probably read this book at least twenty times myself," she says, turning the book over in her hands. Gently, she presses her finger on a large brown smudge on the book's spine. "Looks like you've read this a few times, too." The smudge was actually from our oven. I had saved all my money for a month to be able to afford the book. I had to hide it safely away from Mom and Charlotte because it was about flying. One day I was sitting in the kitchen, engrossed as Beryl is about to leave her native land of Africa for her flight across the Atlantic, when the front door opened. I was so involved in my reading, I didn't hear it. And then Mom came into the room. She had gotten off work early from her shift at the Red Cross because they ran out of bandages for her to roll. "You're reading about flying again?" she asked, quickly grabbing it away from me. "You know how I feel about this. Why you keep insisting on defying my rules, Bernadette, is beyond me." She opened the oven door and tossed my book inside. When I snuck back into the kitchen a few hours later to retrieve it, the heat from the gaslight had cooked the spine, leaving a smoldering black mark. Thinking about it all, I am ready to burst into tears. If the auburnhaired girl wasn't sitting in my compartment I would be able to close the door and have a nice cry. But instead, I choke back the tears. "What's your name?" she asks abruptly. I hate this question, because I always feel the need to offer an explanation after I answer. "Bernadette Thompson. But nobody calls me that, except my Mom. I hate it, actually. She gave me a rich sounding name, hoping it would help me get a rich husband. Everyone calls me Byrd. It's better that way." "Byrd. I like that. So where you headed, Byrd?" "Texas." She laughs. "Well, that I figured. We're already in Texas, by the way. You must have slept all through Oklahoma. That's when I got on. You ain't going to Sweetwater, are you?" I slowly nod. I didn't even know we were outside of Iowa yet. "Me too," she says, and our eyes meet. And before I know it, the tears start streaming down my face, and for a moment I feel like I'm watching myself from outside of my body. She sits down next to me. "What's the matter? Are you nervous about going to Sweetwater?" she asks. And then I know why I am crying. I shake my head. "It's just that I've never met another woman pilot before," I tell her, the honesty surprising even myself. "I was convinced I was the only one, except for Amelia Earhart and Beryl Markham. That's why I'm going to Sweetwater. To find the others. To belong somewhere." The girl nods, and when our eyes meet, I know she understands. We sit together in silence as the train rattles on, taking us closer to our future.

Edition details

• Publisher: Keene Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0979237122
• ISBN 13: 9780979237126
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 148