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The Landmark series for children, both American and World, is a wonderful, with few exceptions, collection of books written in the 1950s and 1960s and published by Random House. The publisher chose well-known authors, some of whom were novelists and some of whom had not written for children before, and had a historical consultant for each title to make sure that the writing was accurate. There are 122 American Landmark books and 63 World Landmark books. The reading level is fairly broad, intended for upper elementary to early high school levels. The books were intended to convey sound history or biography but in such a manner as to not detract from the intrinsic interest of the story, as history textbooks often do, but to bring out the fascination and drama of the history or historical character being discussed. History is at heart a series of stories, especially at this level, and should be told as such. For the overwhelming majority of the 185 titles, this effort was successful.
Number 10 in the American Landmark series is The Wright Brothers: Pioneers of American Aviation, by Quentin Reynolds. The brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright are special people in American history, since they started over a century of American dominance of the air that continues today. The Wright Brothers were special because they were scientists, engineers, and inventors, which is a rare trifecta of abilities and mindsets. We expect scientists to carry out reproducible, laboratory science to reveal how God made His creation to operate. Engineers take this knowledge and use it to design and make things like bridges, cars, 3D printers, and millions of other machines and parts. But engineers have also done fundamental research and scientists have also built new machines. And just where do inventors come into the picture? They can be scientists or engineers and they are the ones who conceive of and reduce to practice technology that had not been thought of previously. Usually, people are one of the three and rarely do two of these three labels apply to any single person. Orville and Wilbur Wright fit into all three classifications, which is very rare indeed, and were Christians with a personal faith.
The Wright Brothers were inventors, because they invented the wing-warping mechanism that made them the first in the world to create controlled flight. They were master engineers who designed and built a light-weight but powerful aluminum engine that enabled them to have powered, controlled flight. And before all this, they invented, designed, and built a wind tunnel, which they used to measure fundamental wing lift parameters that nobody had ever measured correctly before. Those who had used the old flawed published data did not have a hope at success. Orville and Wilbur looked to God’s creation for their inspiration and encouragement, especially for their way to control the airplane, which no one had ever done before: “Our own growing belief that man might nevertheless learn to fly was based on the idea that while thousands of the most dissimilar body structures, such as insects, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, were flying every day at pleasure, it was reasonable to suppose that man might also fly.” The Wright Brothers, by Quentin Reynolds, is a well-written, knowledgeable book (middle school reading level), which describes, in an interesting way, the lives and accomplishments of these remarkable two men.