Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Chapter 1 - “It’s Just Like Flying!”
Chapter 2 - “Sizz-boom-bah!”
Chapter 3 - The Little Red Plane
Chapter 4 - Top Speed
Chapter 5 - The Important Question
Chapter 6 - Tomato Juice and a 20-Dollar Bill
Chapter 7 - “Because I Want To”
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Amelia Earhart
COURAGE IN THE SKY
“I know what I want to do and I expect to do it.”
—Amelia Earhart
Praise for the Women of Our Time® Series
“Highly regarded authors ... appear in the roster of contributors to ‘Women of Our Time.”’
—Parents Magazine
“Packs plenty of interest and facts into a brief format for young readers.”—Christian Science Monitor
“Provides insight into diverse personalities ... Accessible, attractive, and balanced ... A welcome resource.”
—The Horn Book
For Mother and Daddy with love
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1990
Published in Puffin Books, 1992
20 19
Text copyright © Mona Kerby, 1990
Illustrations copyright © Eileen McKeating, 1990
All rights reserved
WOMEN OF OUR TIME® is a registered trademark of Viking Penguin,
a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Kerby, Mona.
Amelia Earhart: courage in the sky / by Mona Kerby; illustrated
by Eileen McKeating. p. cm.—(Women of our time)
Originally published: New York: Viking, 1990. (Women of our time).
Summary: Follows the life of the pilot who was the first woman to
cross the Atlantic by herself in a plane.
eISBN : 978-1-101-17433-3
1. Earhart, Amelia, 1897—1937—Juvenile literature. 2. Air
pilots—United States—Biography—Juvenile literature.
[1. Earhart, Amelia, 1897-1937. 2. Air pilots.] 1. McKeating,
Eileen, ill. II. Title. III. Series: Women of our time (Puffin Books)
[TL540.E3K47 1992] 629.13’092—dc20 [B] 92-19520
Set in Garamond #3
http://us.penguingroup.com
1
“It’s Just Like Flying!”
The two children stood on the roof of the toolshed and looked down at the slanting track. It stretched eight feet down to the ground. For days they had hammered. At last it was ready. With some help from their uncle, seven-year-old Millie (Amelia) and her five-year-old sister Pidge (Muriel) had built their very own “rolly” coaster.
Millie climbed into the packing crate. She folded her knees into her chest. “Let me go!” she yelled.
The box shot down the wobbly track. Within seconds, the ride was over. The girl and the crate crashed at the bottom.
Millie jumped up. She ignored her torn dress and her hurt lip. She was too excited. “Oh, Pidge,” she said. “It’s just like flying!”
Their parents made them tear down the roller coaster. After all, it was dangerous. But maybe Millie remembered the fun of her short “flight.” When she grew up, Amelia Earhart became one of the most famous airplane pilots in the world.
Of course, on July 24, 1897, the night Amelia was born, her family wasn’t thinking about airplanes or pilots. In 1897, people didn’t fly. There weren’t any airplanes. And even if there were, everyone knew that a woman couldn’t fly one. That would have been a man’s job. In those days, a woman wasn’t supposed to have a career. Her place was in the home.
Amelia Mary Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas, at the home of her grandparents, Judge Alfred Otis and his wife, Amelia. The little girl was named after both of her grandmothers. She was nicknamed Millie by her family.
Amelia’s mother, Amy Otis Earhart, wrote later that Amelia was “a real watercolor baby with the bluest of blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and red lips.”
Soon, Amy Earhart and baby Amelia returned to their own home in Kansas City, Kansas. Amelia’s father, Edwin Stanton Earhart, worked there as a lawyer for the railroad.
Two years later, in 1899, Amelia’s sister, Grace Muriel Earhart, was born. Amelia loved books, animals, and the outdoors. She could read by the time she was four. She kept a book called Insect Life, to identify the insects she found. Amelia’s favorite books were Peter Rabbit, Black Beauty, and all kinds of adventure stories. Almost always, the heroes in those adventures were boys. The girl characters never did anything exciting. Amelia didn’t think this was fair.
Back then, most parents thought girls should play, dress, and act differently from boys. But Amelia’s parents weren’t like that. Amelia loved the outdoors, so Mr. Earhart taught her to fish and play ball. And sometimes, just like a boy, Amelia jumped over fences.
It’s not easy to jump fences in lacy petticoats and stockings. Mrs. Earhart had bloomers made for her daughters. The bloomers were made out of dark blue flannel, with long sleeves, high collars, and divided skirts that reached to the knees. The two girls still had to wear dark stockings and high-top shoes.
Even though some people said that bloomers weren’t proper for little girls, Amelia wore them. They were perfect for walking on stilts, catching toads, and jumping fences.
Amelia didn’t like to play with dolls too often. But it was fun to set them in the doll carriage and tie the carriage to her big black dog, James Ferocious. Muriel shook a bone, and James Ferocious took off running. Amelia hollered and chased from behind.
Once when James Ferocious was tied to a rope in the backyard, some boys teased him. James Ferocious barked and jumped until the rope broke. The boys scrambled onto the toolshed.
The barking awoke 6-year-old Amelia from her nap. She ran outside to her dog. “James Ferocious, you naughty dog,” she said, “you’ve tipped over your water dish again.” She patted her dog and led him inside.
Mrs. Earhart praised Amelia for her bravery, but explained that she could have been hurt. “I wasn’t brave,” the little girl replied, “I just didn’t have time to be scared.”
“Never run away,” Mr. Earhart often told his daughters. Amelia took her father’s words to heart. Big boys and a barking dog didn’t frighten her.
In the spring of 1903, when Amelia was five, Mr. Earhart took a train to Washington, D.C. In those days, most people didn’t travel very far from home. There weren’t any fast planes and cars. Even so, Mr. Earhart went. He had an idea that he thought would make him rich. He had invented a holder that held the signal flags on the backs of trains.
In Washington, Mr. Earhart learned that someone had already invented such a holder. “This news is a terrible blow,” he wrote to his wife.
Later that year, Mrs. Earhart found out exactly what her husband meant. A tax collector came to the Earharts’ home. There’s some mistake, Mrs. Earhart thought. Her husband had paid the taxes. But he hadn’t. Mr. Ea
rhart had spent the money for his trip to Washington, D.C.
When Grandfather Otis found out, he was very angry. He said that Edwin Earhart was not a good husband or father. What’s more, Grandfather said that Edwin would never make enough money to support his family.
Still, the Judge’s disapproval didn’t stop Edwin from spending money the very next year. In 1904, rather than saving, Edwin spent $100. Back then, this was a lot of money. He took his family on a week-long vacation to the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri.
For the first time in her life, 6-year-old Amelia rode an elephant and a Ferris wheel. Because she was too little to ride the roller coaster, Amelia decided to make one in her own backyard.
Amelia learned more than how to make a roller coaster. She was learning lessons that would last her a lifetime. If you want to do something, her father explained, you must be willing to pay the price.
Because her father spent the money, Grandfather Otis disliked him. Grandfather’s disapproval was the price Mr. Earhart paid so that his little girls could enjoy themselves.
Amelia watched her father’s example and remembered. Years later, when she wanted to fly, she would be willing to pay the price.
2
“Sizz-boom-bah!”
Millie squatted down and held her head close to the porch for a good look. She smiled. Her racer was fat and long and slinky. The leaf and the blade of grass made a perfect carriage and harness. She glanced over at Pidge. Her sister’s worm was ready, too. “Go,” Millie shouted, and the worm race was on.
Worm races were just one of the things Amelia dreamed up to do during the summers in Atchison, Kansas. Between 1905 and 1908, Amelia and Muriel lived much of the time with their grandparents. Their parents had moved to Des Moines, Iowa. Mr. Earhart got a good job with the railroad. When he travelled, his wife went with him. The girls remained in Atchison until their mother found a house she thought was right. Besides, Mrs. Earhart thought the schools were better there.
These times were happy. Amelia and Muriel spent hours reading the books and magazines in their grandfather’s library. They also played with their cousins, Lucy and Katherine Challis, nicknamed Toot and Katch. The girls invented their own vocabulary. A house was called a “shouse.” Grocery boys were called “garshee boys.” Grasshoppers were called “hannibals.”
On hot summer evenings, the four cousins gathered the old skins of grasshoppers. Amelia led the way, as they slowly walked to the back of their grandparents’ house. Here they placed the grasshoppers’ skins on a tree stump.
Kneeling, they tapped their heads on the trunk. “Kow-tou-kow-tou to the Great Ken How,” they chanted.
Amelia struck a match to the dried grasshopper skins. While the skins burned, the girls marched around the tree stump singing, “Grumpa, grumpa, dance, dance, dance.” At the very end, they shouted at the top of their lungs, “Hannibal! Hannibal! Sizz-boom-bah!”
On Christmas eve in 1906, the year Amelia was nine, her parents arrived loaded with gifts. Two presents were exactly what Amelia wanted—a boy’s sled and a gun. Of course, Judge Otis didn’t approve of such things for little girls. Perhaps this was one reason that Mr. Earhart gave them to Amelia.
With the new sled, Amelia didn’t sit straight as girls were supposed to do. She did “belly flops” like the boys did. Once, as she was speeding down a hill, she saw a cart and a horse on the road below. Amelia shouted, but the driver didn’t hear. She couldn’t stop and she couldn’t turn. There was only one thing to do. Amelia slid between the horse’s legs.
Amelia wanted the .22 rifle to shoot the rats in the barn. One evening, she shot a rat but it didn’t die. Amelia waited nearly an hour before she saw the rat again. This time she shot and killed it. She was late for dinner, breaking one of Grandmother’s rules. Amelia accepted her punishment—the gun was taken away.
This was probably a good idea. The barn was shot full of holes. The man who worked for Amelia’s grandparents said, “Amelia gets an idea and, by gosh, she stays right with it. Dinner or no dinner, punishment or not, she wanted to get the rats.”
As a little girl and as a grown woman, Amelia was often asked why she wanted to do something. She always replied simply and stubbornly, “Because I want to.”
For her tenth birthday in 1907, Amelia saw her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. She thought it was ugly with its rusty wire and wood. The plane, called a biplane, had two pairs of wings. The pilot sat in the middle and wore goggles so that the wind and bugs wouldn’t get in his eyes. Another man started the plane by turning a big wooden propeller. Years later, Amelia wrote that she didn’t pay much attention to the plane. She was too busy looking at her new hat made out of a peach basket.
In the summer of 1908, the Earhart girls went to live with their parents. Their new home in Des Moines was a big change for the sisters. They didn’t have a maid or a cook. Instead of attending a private school, they attended the public school. By the next year, however, Mr. Earhart was promoted to a better job. The Earhart family moved to a larger house and hired servants.
As a family, they attended concerts and art shows. They belonged to a magazine club, sharing magazines with their neighbors. During the summers, they took vacations in Minnesota. They took trips in their father’s private railroad car. The car had a small living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Everything seemed wonderful.
But it wasn’t. Mr. Earhart began to drink too much alcohol. Several times a week he shuffled home from work. His speech was sloppy and thick. Even though he went to a hospital for treatment, he couldn’t seem to stop drinking too much.
Amelia, Muriel, and Mrs. Earhart didn’t let the neighbors see their sadness. They pretended everything was fine. Still, the Judge and Grandmother Otis knew that something was wrong.
In February, 1912, Grandmother Otis died. In her will, she left her money to her four children. The will stated, however, that Amy’s share was to be held by the bank for twenty years or until Edwin Earhart died. Mr. Earhart was ashamed and embarrassed. He began to drink even more.
And finally, in 1913, he lost his job. Amelia was sixteen years old. She had to leave her high school and her friends. The Earhart family left for St. Paul, Minnesota, where her father found work as a clerk in a railroad office.
Since Amelia and Muriel were new, they weren’t invited to many parties. They didn’t have the money to join the fancy skating and social clubs. In December of that year, they looked forward to a party at their church. Back then, fathers brought their daughters to dances. Mr. Earhart promised to come home in plenty of time. Instead, he came home late. He was drunk. Muriel cried, but Amelia refuse to shed a tear. She threw out the marshmallows which they had planned to have with their hot chocolate after the dance. She tore up the Christmas decorations.
Since there wasn’t money for spring clothes, Amelia took matters into her own hands. She found curtain material in the attic and made skirts for herself and for Muriel. They dyed their skirts and painted their old hats and wore them on Easter morning.
Amelia didn’t complain. In fact, she managed to make Muriel laugh. If it rains, she warned, get under shelter before you leave a trail of green dye.
Things didn’t get better. Mr. Earhart was offered another job. This time, they moved to Springfield, Missouri. Their family arrived in the fall of 1915 with all of their belongings. But a man who was supposed to retire had changed his mind. There was no work for Mr. Earhart after all.
Mrs. Earhart made a painful decision. She left her husband. She took the girls to Chicago and stayed with friends. Brokenhearted, Mr. Earhart lived with his sister in Kansas City. Since he couldn’t get a job as a lawyer with the railroad, he opened his own law office.
In Chicago, Amelia entered Hyde Park High School. The English teacher had trouble controlling the class. Amelia didn’t want to spend the entire year learning nothing. She talked the principal into letting her read in the library during English period. Although this was a way to learn, it was not
a way to make friends. The words under her picture in the school yearbook read, “The girl in brown who walks alone.”
It was almost as if the students had seen into the future. Amelia Earhart would achieve great fame all by herself. But first, she received some welcome help from her family.
3
The Little Red Plane
In the summer of 1916, Amy, Amelia, and Muriel rejoined Edwin Earhart in Kansas City. He was overjoyed. Edwin wanted to help his family again. For this reason, he talked Mrs. Earhart into going to court to break Grandmother Otis’s will. Mrs. Earhart’s brother, who took care of her money, had lost much of it on bad business deals. The court ruled in Mrs. Earhart’s favor. She used the money to send her daughters to good schools.
In the fall of 1916, Amelia arrived at the Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania. She was an excellent student and an outstanding athlete. She liked to play hockey, basketball, and tennis. Her letters to her mother were happy and filled with the details of her school activities.
Amelia was tall and slender, and the girls quickly nicknamed her Butterball. They liked her and Amelia liked them. Still, she was not afraid to speak her mind.
During her first year at school, Amelia belonged to a secret club. When she realized that some students had not been invited to join, she asked the members to include the other girls. They refused. Amelia went to the headmistress, who ran the school, and asked that another club be added for these girls. Instead, the headmistress did away with the secret clubs.
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