| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Boys' Books, Boys' Dreams, and the Mystique of Flight. By Fred Erisman. (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 2006. xx, 346 pp. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-87565-330-3.)
This book is a history of series fiction about flying written for boys between 1905 and 1950. Fred Erisman, a professor of literature emeritus at Texas Christian University, tells us his purpose is to show the importance of these books in popularizing aviation. His method is to describe briefly the contents of each series, focusing on the novels' verisimilitude with regard to aviation technology. He supplies biographical information on some of the authors and summarizes the state of American aviation in four eras.	1
Each era produced several series of boys' novels about flying. The first period, 1905–1930, was dominated by the publishing empire of Edward Stratemeyer, who, together with a stable of writers, turned out hundreds of books about the Rover Boys, Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Ted Scott. Scott, the hero of twenty books published between 1927 and 1943, was, Erisman asserts, clearly inspired by Charles Lindbergh. Ted's first adventure is titled, Over the Ocean to Paris; or, Ted Scott's Daring Long Distance Flight (1927). Two earlier series, Henry Lincoln Sayler's The Air Ship Boys, and John Luter Langworthy's The bbbbroplane Boys, each with eight titles published between 1909 and 1915, established the conventions for the genre. The boy flyers were patriotic, plucky, and honest. Flying was presented as accessible to all, providing new opportunities and offering a sense of freedom different from any existing experience.	. . .

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