Customer Reviews

The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk

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Flying into the future with The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk

Donald J. Sobol made a very exiting book about the Wright Brother's invention with the book "The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk." This is a great biography that has Orville and Wilber Wrights' mess ups and what they had to go through to build the kind of machine that they did.
In The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk Orville and Wilber Wright encounter many challenges when they are trying to build an airplane. By trying to get an object heavier than air into the sky they spend a lot of money and time that they don't have a lot of on something that they don't have to do and don't know too much about. (When the two brothers find out that the air tables are wrong that they have to change everything that they have accomplished on the glider has to be thrown away or rebuilt they don't quit.) And that's just the beginning of all the problems that they come across.
Another problem that they come across is when they're ready to get the machine up into the air they find out that they can't even buy an engine big enough for the size of the machine they have already built. So instead of quitting they make their own engine even though they hardly know anything about motors. Go and read The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk if you want to find out if they every do make it up into the air.


By: Roberto

I use this biography in my fourth grade classroom. It does a good job of characterizing Orville and Wilbur Wright -- you get a true sense of their determination and perfectionism. However, some of the information is very technical which tends to confuse my children. In the end, my students have mixed feelings about the book - some enjoy it immensely while others complain that it is hard to read.

This is a superb narrative on the Wright Brothers. Author Donald J. Sobol describes Orville and Wilbur as they strive to build the first motorized flying machine (gliders and balloons already existed). Readers see how the two brothers often struggled and failed, but never gave up. Imagine trying to invent a flying machine and discovering that the existing books on aeronautics are so flawed that you need to invent your own. The author includes some technical information on wing warp (discovered by accident) and other vital parts of flight. Readers see how the Wright Brothers' achievements came partly from useful allies like Oscar Chanute, in addition to their own considerable talent and determination. We also see the muted reaction to their success at flight in the press; few realizing that a milestone had been reached that would lead to rapid innovation and improvement.

Donald Sobol has an easy reading style, and he has many lessons here for young readers. I really enjoyed this book as a younger, not to mention the author's Encyclopedia Brown mysteries.

Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk is a great book for kids ages 9-12. It is fun to read, exciting, and factual all in one. I would recommend this book for a great gift to a 4th grader.