The setting is a small town in Rhode Island during World War II. Fifth-grader Bird loves flying with her airplane-mechanic father more than anything:

We were flying above the clouds in Mr. Watson’s yellow Piper. I guided the small propeller plane so that it moved through the air just like an eagle. Seeing me in my World War I pilot’s skullcap goggles and my Hunk Finn dungarees, you’d never guess that someone with a neat name like Bird McGill was actually an eleven-year-old girl. But I was. I worked the controls carefully, scanning the sky for bogies at twelve o’clock.

When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Bird’s father is called to active duty. Bird is more determined than ever to someday fly a P-40 Warhawk, despite her older sister’s admonition that women can’t be fighter pilots. To that end, Bird studies the manual her father gave her until she nearly has it memorized.

Not long after, a Japanese-American boy, Kenji Fujita, arrives at Bird’s school. Accused of being a spy, Kenji  is taunted by the students. When Kenji and Bird see an enemy submarine in the town’s lake, no one believes them. To prove that they are telling the truth, the two endeavor to take a photograph of the sub. During the attempt, Bird stumbles, literally, into a plot to blow up the local airplane engine factory as well as assassinate President Roosevelt.

Ferrari does an exceptionally fine job of balancing the fast-paced action with the small, evocative details and smartly written dialogue that make this so much more than just an action-adventure.  

Highly recommended. District-wide purchase strongly encouraged.

Classroom Experience: We read the book aloud to a sixth-grade class, stopping at appropriate cliff-hangers. The students eagerly anticipated, indeed begged for, the next installment. Both boys and girls rated it as one of their all-time favorites.