Wood, Wire, Wings

Emma Lilian Todd Invents an Airplane

Calkins Creek

(Boyds Mills & Kane)

(pub. 2.25.2020) 

48 pages

A True Tale with

A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Kristen W. Larson
       and illustrator: Tracy Subisak

C haracter: Emma Lilian

O verview:

       

    "Emma Lilian Todd's mind was always soaring--she loved to solve problems. Lilian tinkered and fiddled with all sorts of objects, turning dreams into useful inventions. As a child, she took apart and reassembled clocks to figure out how they worked. As an adult, typing up patents at the U.S. Patent Office, Lilian built the inventions in her mind, including many designs for flying machines. However, they all seemed too impractical. Lilian knew she could design one that worked. She took inspiration from both nature and her many failures, driving herself to perfect the design that would eventually successfully fly. Illustrator Tracy Subisak's art brings to life author Kirsten W. Larson's story of this little-known but important engineer."

T antalizing taste: 

     "Lilian spent hours considering the crows circling overhead, studying the angle of an albatross's wing, and constructing models that hung like chandeliers from the ceiling.

     Before long, her airplane took over her apartment - then it took over her life.

And something more:  The Author's Note explains that "while many early airplane designers competed to fly faster, higher, and farther, Lilian focused on making airplanes a practical form of transportation, like the trolley... She also became the Aeronautic Society's first woman member and founded the Junior Aero Club in America, which taught children the science of flight and encouraged invention. After her airplanes' successful flight, Lilian donated it to the New York National Guard, making the Guard the first state military to have an airplane."