YA Adventure
Date Published: 12-05-2024
Publisher: Empire Studies Press
Fly along with Ruby, Sarra, Isoke and other young heroines as they take to the skies to save their families.
Nine scenarios, nine heroines, nine lessons in flight.
Gia travels from Manhattan's Lower East Side to the Aleutian Islands to capture one of the most mysterious warplanes of all time - the Mitsubishi A6M Zero.
Young Yi-Tai Jo falls in love with the homely, misunderstood X-1 rocket jet. Heartbroken at X's failure to break the speed of sound, she may have a solution.
One morning, bratty Anke has a bitter spat with her sister, Romy. Yet when Romy is kidnapped, Anke is the one who can save her - using an old war-kite to glide to the villain's tower. Can she navigate gliding through the Black Forest and save Romy?
Ship-salvager's daughter Sarra defies a garrison to save Father from Rome's wrath. Can her home-made balloon win the day?
"Tom's delightful stories in The Aviation Girls span ancient ideas about flight through the Golden Age of aviation to the Age of Rocketry."
-- Anne Millbrooke, author of the award-winning “Aviation History
ACT ONE: A LOST BABY
When feathery therapod dinosaurs launched
themselves into the air roughly 160 million years ago,
they were limited flyers, fluttering only over short distances
or in tiny bursts. But with only a few exceptions,
the more than 10,000 species of birds descended from
those dinosaurs have evolved into extraordinary flight machines …
-- Samik Bhattacharya
Ayaeeewueeiioooo --
It was a Capuchin.
So much pathos showed in the baby monkey’s face, having suddenly become aware of its helplessness. She called for her mother.
The pitiful infant was stranded high in the top branches.
She was lost. Helpless. Terrified.
EEEeeiiioooooo ahuhahuahu …
The high-pitched trill came out in short bursts.
It repeated, worse this time.
The baby had tried to find and touch the pretty lights in the sky and gotten lost in the process.
Disoriented, too many trees away from home and scared, the baby Capuchin called again and again for its mother. Her distress was unbearable to hear.
A storm gathered in the mountain beyond. Raindrops plunked in the foliage. Strong winds bent the branches to and fro.
AYowwww ahuhahuhahuh WAAH!
Far below her, near the first branches up from the ground, a panther crept, silent and stalking.
He was a figure from a nightmare, a walking embodiment of death.
The Capuchin wailed pitifully.
She tried to call out her tormenter’s name, so as to more properly demand help.
“Demon!” It was the only word she could think of.
“Demon! Oh, someone save me. Mama! AAaaagghhh -- ”
The baby monkey’s cries were lost in a compound sequence of crashing thunders.
The storm moved closer.
Mesmerized by the way the cat’s powerful muscles moved beneath a blue-black gleaming coat of fur, the baby monkey made no effort to hide.
The Panther’s eyes looked around. He blinked and caught some small movement in the growing storm winds.
The panther stared upward.
He locked eyes with his prey …
About the Author
Tom Durwood is a teacher, writer and editor with an interest in history. Tom most recently taught English Composition and Empire and Literature at Valley Forge Military College, where he won the Teacher of the Year Award five times.
Tom’s historical fiction adventures has been promising. The stories have won nine literary awards to date. “A true pleasure … the richness of the layers of Tom’s novel is compelling,” writes Fatima Sharrafedine in her foreword to “The Illustrated Boatman’s Daughter.” The Midwest Book Review calls that same adventure “uniformly gripping and educational … pairing action and adventure with social issues.” Adds Prairie Review, “A deeply intriguing, ambitious historical fiction series.”
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