Wingwalker

During the Depression, Reuben and his out-of-work parents move from Oklahoma to Minnesota, where his father gets a job as a carnival wingwalker and Reuben has a chance to overcome his terror of flying.

Grade 3-6-In this deceptively slim, slice-of-life chapter book, the narrator recounts a pivotal childhood summer. Reuben is a carefree second grader living in rural Oklahoma with his mother, a caf‚ cook, and his father, a dance instructor, when the Depression and Dust Bowl end the family's stable, quiet way of life. Desperate for work, the boy's father takes a job as an airplane wingwalker in a Minnesota traveling carnival. Reuben's retelling of the dramatic events is subtle and matter-of-fact, filled with the small, everyday details that color memories and help readers to see life through his eyes. Although some youngsters may need historical background to understand the family's experiences, they will relate to Reuben's feelings, and to the timeless themes-coping with teasing, peer pressure, unwelcome change, and overcoming one's fears. The carnival workers are portrayed with dignity and humor. Filled with muted earth tones and hinting of folk art, Selznick's striking, bordered paintings create an evocative portrait of the era, and aptly complement the quality text. Even the endpapers reflect the period, resembling popular wallpaper patterns of the '30s. An engaging story, and a well-crafted, thoroughly enjoyable book.
Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Studded with Selznick's evocative illustrations, Wells's affecting chapter book opens in 1933, when the young narrator wins an airplane ride with a stunt pilot at the Oklahoma Air Races. Reuben is terrified, but his airplane-mad father can't see it: "I saw pride shining in his eyes like stars," Reuben observes. "If I did not go, I would forever cut a little diamond shape of disappointment out of my father's heart." After the dreaded wild ride, Reuben swears he will never go higher than his attic window. But Reuben's sights are to be radically expanded. When dust storms turn the green prairies "the color of meal crackers," Reuben's parents lose their jobs. His father, answering an ad for a "wingwalker" who "must be brave and light on the feet" (the job entails standing on the wing of a plane as it circles above paying onlookers), moves the family to join a carnival in Minnesota. In a voice at once ingenuous and wise, Reuben relays his mutually enriching encounters with the kind carnival performers, who help him soar, literally and figuratively. Rendered in a muted palette, the art has a quiet gravity, whether showing Hopper-like streets of small towns or even people queuing at carnival attractions, their eyes averted or hidden from the viewer. The final spread has all the more power for its contrast: sunlight illuminates a cloudy sky as the hero, finally, takes wing. Ages 7-10.

*Starred Review* Gr. 3-5. Wells shows she can paint as well with words as she can with color in this evocative story set during the Depression. Unlike his father, a dance instructor whose head is in the clouds, Reuben, almost eight, doesn't like the idea of flying, A winning ticket at the 1933 Oklahoma Air Races entitles him to a ride in the sky with a stunt flyer, and Reuben hates every minute. When the dust starts swirling through Oklahoma, and jobs, such as dance instructor, blow into the wind, Reuben and his family wait and worry--until Father sees an ad for a carnival wing walker. The family moves to Minnesota, where dusty fields are replaced by a thousand lakes, and the homogeneous population of Ambler, Oklahoma, a community with a tattooed lady, a fire eater, and a father who dances the Tango on the wings of an airplane. And one day, to his amazement, so does Reuben. This is a beautifully crafted book. Wells has chosen her words with precision ("I would forever cut a little diamond of disappointment in my father's heart"), and great care has been taken with the book design: the pages are thick, cream-colored paper, and the type is elegant yet readable. As fine as the text are Selznick's insightful Norman Rockwell-like pictures, brushed with Oklahoma dust. The rectangular pictures, placed against bare, buff-colored backgrounds, seem like windows that look backward to a time when life was different but hearts were the same. Ilene Cooper
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