Science Comics: Flying Machines: How the Wright Brothers Soared - Hardcover

Wilgus, Benjamin A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1626721408 ISBN 13: 9781626721401

Publisher: First Second, 2017

Synopsis

A National Science Teachers Association Best STEM Books of 2017

Take to the skies with Flying Machines!

Follow the famous aviators from their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, to the fields of North Carolina where they were to make their famous flights. In an era of dirigibles and hot air balloons, the Wright Brothers were among the first innovators of heavier than air flight. But in the hotly competitive international race toward flight, Orville and Wilbur were up against a lot more than bad weather. Mechanical failures, lack of information, and even other aviators complicated the Wright Brothers’ journey. Though they weren’t as wealthy as their European counterparts, their impressive achievements demanded attention on the international stage. Thanks to their carefully recorded experiments and a healthy dash of bravery, the Wright Brothers’ flying machines took off.

About this title

About the Author

Alison Wilgus is a Brooklyn-based author of comics and prose. She got her start as an animation writer onCodename: Kids Next Door, and her work has since been published by Scholastic, Nickelodeon Magazine, Del Rey, Dark Horse, and Tor.com, among others.

Molly Brooks grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, received her MFA in illustration from the School of Visual Arts, and is currently based in Brooklyn. Her illustrations have appeared in The Village Voice, The Guardian, The Boston Globe,Time Out New York, The Toast, BUST Magazine, Sports Illustrated online, and elsewhere.

From School Library Journal

Gr 5–8—This graphic account of the Wright brothers' achievement skimps on biographical details but tells a grand tale of invention, demonstrating how systematic research and experimentation—punctuated with occasional flashes of brilliant insight—can really pay off. Serving as narrator, interviewer, and cheerleader, Orville and Wilbur's younger sister Katharine squires readers from her brothers' childhood encounter with a small rubber band powered "hélicoptère" invented by Alphonse Pénaud through their final triumph, then swoops through a quick history of later aviation, with particular attention to Englishman Frank Whittle's work on turbojets in World War II. She pauses at appropriate points to survey contemporaneous aeronautical progress in France and elsewhere. She also delivers lucid explanations of Newton's laws of motion, aerodynamics, and other significant scientific principles, as well as full, exact specs for each of the Wrights' gliders and powered aircraft. (The small panels of brown and gold color art give way to more freely organized pages of carefully detailed monochrome diagrams and drawings.) Along with nods to many of aviation's other early pioneers, Wilgus and Brooks close with a profile of Katharine Wright herself. VERDICT Inspirational reading for budding middle grade inventors and engineers—valuable for its broad picture of aviation's early history and for providing specifics about the technical problems the Wright brothers faced and solved.—John Peters, Children's Literature Consultant, New York

About this edition

• Publisher: First Second
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1626721408
• ISBN 13: 9781626721401
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 128
• Illustrator: Brooks Molly