For more than a century before airplanes, people explored the sky in balloons. From 1783 to the early 1900s, aeronauts flew into storms, crossed large bodies of water, sailed over enemy armies, and soared to deadly altitudes. Illustrated in full color with dramatuc period artwork, Sky Sailors by David L. Bristow presents the stories of the pioneers of human flight, such as daredevil Sophie Blanchard from Napoleon's France, and Salomon Andree, who lead an aerial assault on the North Pole in 1897.
For every bomber pilot in the Korean War, there were enlisted aircrewmen maintaining the aircraft and its equipment. One of those men was Aviation Electronics Technician Second Class Jack Sauter. AT2 Sauter was assigned to the USS Lake Champlain, part of Task Force 77. As an aircrewman, Sauter flew 21 early warning and anti-submarine (ASW) missions from the backseat of a Douglas Skyraider. When not flying, he maintained the equipment that protected his plane and its crew. This is an enlisted man's story of service in the Korean air war. There was the excitement of serving in a combat zone, but there was also the boredom and tedium with which to contend.
Sail away to dreamland! Follow a small boy and his dog as they navigate the land of dreams in a paper boat. As you journey through the night, you will meet all kinds of curious and magical creatures.
"It was the sea that made me begin thinking secretly about love more than anything else; you know, a love worth dying for, or a love that consumes you. To a man locked up in a steel ship all the time, the sea is too much like a woman... Things like her lulls and storms, or her caprice... are all obvious." The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea tells the tale of a band of savage thirteen-year-old boys who reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call "objectivity." When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship's officer, he and his friends idealize the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard their disappointment in him as an act of betrayal on his part, and react violently.
Do Dolphins Ever Sleep? covers some 200 highly interesting topics, some with the most astonishing answers to questions you probably wondered about or perhaps never thought of.
A memorable collection of weather sayings, beautifully arranged in story form and illustrated by renowned paper artist Elly MacKay. Red sky at night, sailor's delight. And, the next morning, when the dew is on the grass, no rain will come to pass. These are the perfect conditions for a grandfather to take his grandchildren out on a fishing trip. Especially since, as the saying goes, when the wind is from the West, then the fishes bite the best. The family takes a boat out on the lake, fishing and swimming and eventually camping out on a nearby island, taking full advantage of the gorgeous weather. But the next day . . . red sky in the morning, sailors take warning! The family ventures back home just in time to avoid a rainstorm. But not to worry -- the more rain, the more rest. Fair weather's not always best. Acclaimed paper artist Elly MacKay illustrates a lovely family narrative through the use of weather aphorisms, creating a beautiful and informational story which will appeal to children's timeless fascination with the natural world.
This is a true story about a man who was passionate about airplanes--flying them, designing them and building them. His innovative designs and creative vision were so much a part of aviation history that his breakthrough biplane design, the Staggerwing, shown on the cover of this book, hangs in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. Ted Wells not only designed the Staggerwing, but also the Model 18 and many other extremely popular and enduring commercial and military aircraft. Beech Aircraft, the company he co-founded with Walter and Olive Ann Beech, continues to build planes to a standard influenced by Ted's contribution to pioneering aviation. While best known for his career in aeronautics, Ted Wells was equally passionate about sailboats and became a competitive sailor of great skill. He sailed at a level of performance that literally exceeded all others. Twice he was awarded the World Championship for the Snipe class of sailboats after winning against national champions from many countries. Ted Wells was an extraordinarily talented and accomplished individual who put his unique stamp on the most exciting technology of his era. This is his story.
"The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky is moving and memorable, one of the novellas of the year." -- Locus Magazine They had escaped their country, but they couldn’t escape the past Having lost both her home and family to a brutal dictatorship, Isabel has fled to Spain, where she watches young, bronzed beauties and tries to forget the horrors that lie in her homeland. Shadowing her always, attired in rumpled linen suits and an eyepatch, is “The Eye,” a fellow ex-pat and poet with a notorious reputation. An unlikely friendship blossoms, a kinship of shared grief. Then The Eye receives a mysterious note and suddenly returns home, his fate uncertain. Left with the keys to The Eye’s apartment, Isabel finds two of his secret manuscripts: a halting translation of an ancient, profane work, and an evocative testament of his capture during the revolution. Both texts bear disturbing images of blood and torture, and the more Isabel reads the more she feels the inexplicable compulsion to go home. It means a journey deep into a country torn by war, still ruled by a violent regime, but the idea of finding The Eye becomes ineluctable. Isabel feels the manuscripts pushing her to go. Her country is lost, and now her only friend is lost, too. What must she give to get them back? In the end, she has only herself left to sacrifice. THE SEA DREAMS IT IS THE SKY asks: How does someone simply give up their home...especially when their home won’t let them?
