Amelia Earhart · A little dream takes flight

ZENA MEETS

Amelia Earhart

A little dream takes flight

Written by Zen Bloom
Art direction by Rowan Vale

A little book to read together.
Turn the page and come along!

Book 05 in the ZenBloomBooks collection

Hello, little explorer!

Zena is our storybook guide. She dresses up and acts out ideas from this real person’s life.

The girl in these pictures is Zena. The story is about Amelia Earhart.

Read. Point. Wonder. Play.

MEET THE REAL PERSON

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was a pilot from the United States. She learned to fly and bought a yellow plane. In 1932, she became the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean. She also encouraged other women to fly.

Zena gazes upward from a green meadow as one small yellow propeller plane passes through a blue sky

A girl looked at the sky.

And watched the planes fly by.

She wished that she could go

Above the world below.

Zena practises in a simple pretend wooden cockpit while a friendly adult instructor points to a large plain dial

She learned to fly and steer.

With help, and care, and cheer.

She practised, day by day.

Till she could find her way.

Zena proudly stands beside a small yellow biplane parked on grass, a simple early flying-machine shape with two wings and a stationary propeller, no lettering or logos.

Her yellow plane could fly.

Like sunshine in the sky.

She climbed above the ground.

A whole new view she found.

Zena plans a flight at a desk with a plain globe, a closed compass and notebook

A wide sea lay ahead.

She checked the maps she read.

To fly that long, long way,

She planned before the day.

She checked her plane with care.

Before she took the air.

The wings, the fuel, the gear.

The time to go was near.

A simple red single-engine high-wing aeroplane flies over a deep blue ocean beneath a night sky

Her red plane rose in flight.

And flew into the night.

The sea lay far below.

She had so far to go.

The same red high-wing plane with Zena in its cockpit passes beneath two soft grey rain clouds above the ocean

Through cloud and rain she flew.

She used the skills she knew.

She watched and steered with care.

Across the ocean air.

Zena smiles beside the parked red plane on green Irish farmland after landing, with one low stone wall and distant rolling fields

Green fields came into sight.

She landed from her flight.

The first woman, alone,

Across that sea had flown.

Zena shares a model plane with three diverse child friends wearing simple pilot outfits beside the red parked aircraft

Her story travelled far.

A pilot, now a star.

More women shared her sky.

With dreams of flying high.

Zena and a child friend try paper aeroplanes in a bright meadow, a large folded glider in her hand

Fold paper, make a wing.

Try one small flying thing.

A little glide, then two.

What might a change now do?

Look again

Find the red plane.

Point to the sea.

What is above the plane?

What is below it?

Zena stands with open hands, inviting you to try an activity, in a sunny airfield.

Have a go

With a grown-up, fold

a paper aeroplane.

Try a gentle glide.

What could you change?

Tell the story

Why did she check her plane?

What did she learn first?

What might a pilot need

before taking off?

Zena sits cross-legged and thinks about a question, in a sunny airfield.

A little wonder

The Atlantic is an ocean.

It is very, very wide.

She crossed it in one flight.

Where would you like to go?

FOR GROWN-UPS

A real life, a first little story

Amelia Earhart was born in 1897. She disappeared during a different, round-the-world flight in 1937 and was legally declared dead in 1939.
On 20-21 May 1932, she flew solo from Newfoundland to a farm near Londonderry in Northern Ireland.
She was the first woman to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic. Her 1928 Atlantic crossing had been as a passenger.
Her yellow first aircraft was a Kinner Airster. Her solo Atlantic flight used a red Lockheed Vega 5B. Zena's planes are simplified storybook representations.

This book simplifies a longer life. Zena’s play, friends and props illustrate ideas; they do not reconstruct particular childhood events.

Read slowly. Leave time for questions. Adapt the activities to your child.

Keep discovering

Original text and illustrations for ZenBloomBooks.

Choose another adventure

Written by Zen Bloom
Art direction by Rowan Vale