The story is a fairly loose treatment, with imagination filling in historical gaps, but the author meticulously distinguishes fact from speculation in her lengthy closing note. O’Neill recreates Walsh’s feat based on clues from period documents and memories from Walsh himself late in his life. Irish immigrant teenager Homan Walsh managed to send his octagonal calico kite from the Canadian to the American shore in the dead of winter, thereby winning a ten-dollar prize and bragging rights to completing the first step in the construction of the international bridge. set out the challenge for an enterprising kite flier to lay out the first line across the Niagara River at the site at which he was commissioned to build a bridge. There are historical notes, a timeline and many additional resources in the back.In 1847 engineer Charles Ellet, Jr. The illustrator, Terry Widener, did a wonderful job of evoking the setting and matching the words with pictures in a seamless union. Teachers can use this book to make curriculum connections in science, social studies and expressing emotion in narrative writing, to name a few. he style lends itself to a terrific read-aloud. An extensive author’s note spells out what is known and not known about the story and supplies additional facts about the building of the bridge.Ī well-told story with many curriculum links. O’Neill’s spare text communicates both grandeur and dignity. Widener’s full-page acrylic paintings closely follow the narrative, emphasizing the harsh winter landscape and giving a clear sense of the odds against spanning the gorge. For libraries looking to strengthen STEM-related units on engineering and 19th-century New York history, this is the perfect match. The back matter is particularly helpful in unraveling the fact from the fiction. The rich language and the evocative oil paintings make these subjects of history and civil engineering come alive.
Told in poetic free verse, the book details the young narrator’s emotional journey as he prepared for the engineer-sponsored contest by making a kite he named “Union.” The boy’s account is filled with robust scientific observation and inquiry.
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