"She is a pilot herself, so her AIR BABIES commit none of the technical errors so revolting to well-informed children" (A. Earhart, 1936). High praise, that, for a fine children’s book, Air Babies, penned and illustrated by Elvy Kalep, coming from America’s most beloved aviator. Amelia Earhart would depart from Lae, of what was then Papua and New Guinea, just a year later, never to return. Air Babies was published first by The Saalfield Publishing Company in Akron, Ohio, first in 1936. Amelia Earhart provided the Foreword and a facsimile signature; it was reissued in 1938. My copy is sublime.
Charles Lindbergh became in the ‘30s an American Fascist who got swept up by the xenophobia and bigotry of Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler and by the radio-hour rantings of our own Father Coughlin. Amelia Earhart, however, was a hero, a beacon for others to emulate. So was Bessie Coleman, the first African-American and Native American aviatrix in the U.S. She survived a near fatal airplane accident in February of 1923, and she partly desegregated Texas aerodromes where whites and blacks came to witness her aeronautical derring-do. Her flight on April 30, 1926--in an airplane that had no roof and with her not wearing a seat-belt--ended with her falling out of her airplane to her death; her mechanic had left a wrench loose, and it jammed up the engine. Civil rights-activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett delivered her eulogy at the funeral in Chicago.
Not many children's books are augmented with a Foreword by Amelia Earhart. She lamented the specific lack of books for young people devoted to air travel and navigation. The author and illustrator of Air Babies, Elvy Kalep, was an Estonian navigator, Estonia's first woman thus. Her fancifully drawn "flying babies" illustrate short stories that instruct young children about geography, flying conditions, weather, learning, and physics. "Uncle Zepp" introduces the zeppelin and joins "Ground School," "Take-Off," "Gary Glider," "Willie Kite," "Nasty Storm," "Patsie Parachute," "Blind Flying," and many others.
The author, born Alviine-Johanna Kalep (26 June 1899 – 15 August 1989) in Estonia, grew up there and in Russia and then the Soviet Union and then emigrated with her family to China with her family during the Soviet Revolution. She then moved to Paris to study art with Alexandre Jacovleff and was taught in Switzerland to fly in the late 1920s by the Dutch aviator Anthony Fokker and successfully tested in Germany to become Estonia's first woman navigator. She joined the fledgling trade organization of women pilots, the Ninety-Nines, which took off in 1929. Their newsletter of July 15, 1933 notes a benefit skating party on July 13. “Elvy Kalep’s posters and sketches were as decorative and amusing as ever.”
Editor's Note - Retraction:
In January, The Times-Journal published three articles by Lawrence Hammar in his column Books Will Speak Plain. In the articles, paleographer Andrea Boltresz was spoken about improperly. The Times-Journal apologizes for this and wishes to clarify that we didn’t mean to publish anything inferring that Mrs. Boltresz has mental health issues.
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