A Dream of Flight: Albertos Santos-Dumont’s Race Around the Eiffel Tower

A Dream of Flight: Albertos Santos-Dumont’s Race Around the Eiffel TowerA Dream of Flight: Alberto Santos-Dumont's Race Around the Eiffel Tower by Jef Polivka, Rob Polivka
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) on July 30, 2019
ISBN: 0374306613
Pages: 40
Genres: Biography/Autobiography
Format: Picture Book Nonfiction
Goodreads
four-stars

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Deutsch Prize was the most coveted aviation prize, and a pilot would have to fly a balloon around Paris’s Eiffel Tower in thirty minutes or less to win it. Alberto Santos-Dumont thought he could be the first to succeed.  The story is well written and the illustrations are delightful, reminiscent of the Tin Tin books. I appreciated the authors emphasizing the many times that Santos failed and learned from his mistakes. I would have liked a bit more information about the man. There is a photograph of him at the end of the book. A terrific book to motivate future engineers.

Reviewed by Barb Rehmeyer, Liberty Library

four-stars