Sherri L. Smith, author of Flygirl,

Welsone Sherri L. Smith is an award-winning young adult author with four novels to her name.  Her latest book, FLYGIRL (Putnan) is an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults Nominee.

Tell me about your relationship with flying and the aviation community.

 I must confess I am a passenger, rather than a pilot.  For me, one of the joys of being a writer is I get to try on other people’s shoes.  It’s amazing how research and imagination can combine on the page to bring a scene to life.  My mother made a point of taking me and my brother all over the world when we were children, so I’ve been flying the friendly skies since I was an infant.  To date I’ve had the pleasure of sitting with hundreds of other people in jumbo jets, as well as being crammed in the back of a tiny three-seater in Southeast Alaska, not to mention a memorably terrifying flight in a helicopter with no doors at a county fair in the 70s!  While I am happy to remain out of the cockpit in real life, my brother and father both caught the aviation bug.   My brother studied aeronautical and astronautical engineering in college, and my father trained for his pilot’s license when I was in my teens.  When it came to writing FLYGIRL, picking their brains and those of other pilots helped fill in the gaps in my own experience.

Tell me about your book/s.

My latest book, FLYGIRL, is about a light-skinned black girl who passes for white in order to join the Womens Airforce Service Pilots during World War II.  At the time women pilots were frowned upon, and it was actually rumored that blacks couldn’t fly at all.  Add gasoline rations and a Jim Crow army to the mix, and my heroine, Ida Mae, didn’t have a prayer of flying until the war was over.  Fortunately, the army was making a push to “free a man to fight” overseas, so women were coming out of the kitchen and into factories and military quarters all over the country.  The Womens Airforce Service Pilots was a fascinating part of this change.  The ladies were non-military and had to have better flight records than the men they were replacing.  What’s more, if a WASP was killed in the line of duty (and several were), the military would not pay for their funerals.  It was an uphill battle and it’s amazing that so many women were up to the challenge.  When I learned of the WASP in a Radio Diaries piece on NPR, I knew I had found my next novel.  There are so many amazing stories to be told of women in aviation—from Bessie Coleman and Jackie Cochran, to the ladies of the Mercury 13 and beyond.  Who knows, maybe there’ll be another book in it for me down the road!

What kind of books do you like to read? What's your favorite "flying" book?

 I’m all over the place when it comes to my own reading.  As a kid, I was heavily into fantasy, then science fiction.  I’ve done my share of horror and mystery reading as well.  At the end of the day, I like any book with some adventure and great characters that I’ll enjoy getting to know.  My favorite “flying” book is a good question…  I came across a number of fascinating books while researching FLYGIRL.  One of my favorites is more of a picture book called YANKEE DOODLE GIRLS by Amy Nathan.  It’s a simple, beautifully compiled book with fantastic photos and tons of information about the WASP.  It will fire the imagination of any aviation fan, young or old, and make you want to learn more.  I also need to give a nod to the IMAX movie “To Fly” at the Smithsonian Museum when I was a kid growing up in Washington, D.C.  The sense of vertigo when the camera would leap off a cliff was amazing.  More than anything, that movie made me want “ To Fly.”

What are you writing now?

 My current project is a foray into speculative fiction.  It’s a book called ORLEANS, set in a near future in which a series of devastating hurricanes have caused the entire Delta coast to be quarantined from the rest of the country.  My mother was from New Orleans and she made it through Katrina, though not unscathed.  I love the city, but I’m ashamed to say it’s at risk of being forgotten.  There is so much more work to do along the coast to make it whole again.  This book came from the stories I heard from my mother and elsewhere during the week she spent there after the storm, before we could get the Coast Guard in to pull her out.
I’m hard at work on it right now.  Hopefully it will be on shelves in 2011.

Thanks Sherri for visiting. I hope Flygirl is a great success and encourages many young women to consider taking to the skies.

Sherri L. Smith was born in Chicago, Illinois and spent most of her childhood reading books. She began writing Flygirl as a master's thesis project after hearing about the WASP program on public radio. Sherri’s first book, Lucy the Giant, was an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults in 2003.  The Dutch translation, Lucy XXL (Gottmer, 2005), was awarded an Honorable Mention at the 2005 De Gouden Zoen, or Golden Kiss, Awards for Children’s Literature in the Netherlands.  Her novel, Sparrow, was chosen as a National Council for the Social Studies/Children’s Book Council Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People and is also a 2009 Louisiana Young Readers Choice Award Nominee.  She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she has worked in movies, animation, comic books and construction.  Flygirl is her fourth novel.  She is currently at work on her fifth.  You can learn more about  Sherri, find links to order her books, or contact her for author visits at www.sherrilsmith.com.

 Flygirl captures the indomitable spirit of the WASP. Main characters Ida Mae, Lily and Patsy exhibit the courage mixed with daring and commitment that still inspire WASP admirers.  Congratulations, Sherri, on your fine contribution!”

—Marianne Wood, Museum Director, National WASP WWII Museum

 “It was hard not to find myself cheering Ida Mae on.  Hard not to get an itch to fly after reading this.  Sherri Smith is a truly talented writer and Flygirl is a wonderful story.”

—Jacqueline Woodson, Newbery Honor-winning author of Feathers and Show Way

 “Gifted novelist Sherri L. Smith has written a passionate and important book about a young woman who heroically risks everything when she discovers her dreams and her identity are, heartbreakingly, at odds. A wonderfully readable story that illuminates a too-little known chapter of American history.”

—Michael M. Cart, Former President, YALSA, and Chair, 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Committee