December 17 is Wright Brothers Day. It commemorates the first successful flights in a heavier-than-air, mechanically propelled airplane. Orville and Wilbur Wright's The Wright Flyer took to the skies near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. There are a ton of biographies about the brothers and their historic achievement in the Kid Zone's nonfiction section, under JB WRI. But I particularly want to highlight a new book that tells a different story with the same characters.
Wilbur Wright Meets Lady Liberty by Robert Burleigh & Wendell Minor (03/09/21)
On September 29th, 1909, Wilbur Wright performed his first public flight for a crowd of disbelievers in the New York Harbor, home to the Statue of Liberty. With courage and caution, he put his airplane to the test and flew around the iconic landmark while the crowd observed, breathless. This minute-by-minute account of Wright’s voyage over New York City captures the weight and the wonder of human achievement. When Wilbur Wright met Lady Liberty, he propelled his dream into the imaginations of many, securing the future of aviation.
Take a look at some historic photos of the event on the Smithsonian National Space and Air Museum website.
