“Women Daredevils:
Thrills, Chills, and Frills” by Julie Cummins, illus. by Cheryl Harness (Dutton
Juvenile, 9780525479482, $17.99, 48 pages, ages 9 to 12)
Long
before the days of television and “extreme sports,” spectators flocked to
live shows by daredevil performers: bareback riders, lion-tamers, stunt
pilots, and even human cannonballs. In this new picture-book history, we
learn that many of these adventurous souls were courageous women who refused
to let the restraints of “convention and costume” keep them out of the
spotlight.
Julie
Cummins is a children’s librarian with the New York Public Library; Cheryl
Harness is a prolific illustrator and children’s author who lives in
Independence, Missouri. Together, they give ten accounts of women who dared
to strut their stuff in most dangerous ways in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. Here are some shining examples:
-
An
English girl called Zazel, born Rosa Matilda Richter, became the first
human to be shot out of a cannon in 1877. Her pink tights were
scandalous for the time, and her act caused such a sensation that
legendary circus impresario P. T. Barnum invited her to tour America
with his show. She made such a lasting impression on her audiences that
for years many lady cannon-ballers continued to use the stage name “Zazel."
-
Atlantic City was the Disneyland of the early 1900s, and for years,
Sonora Carver was its star: riding a horse named Red Lips, she regularly
dove off a sixty-foot diving tower into a tank about the size of a home
swimming pool. Even after a bad dive that blinded her permanently,
Carver continued to perform for eleven more years as a lead attraction,
and she lived to the age of 99. (Her autobiography was made into the
Disney film “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken.”
-
In
the 1920s, Gladys Roy and Gladys Ingle—two wild and crazy Gladyses—were
each renowned “wing-walkers”: they worked with troupes of traveling
show-pilot “barnstormers” and performed death-defying acts on the wings
of bi-planes. Gladys Roy’s specialty was dancing the popular Charleston
and playing imaginary tennis in mid-air; Gladys Ingle’s special trick
was shooting both guns and arrows into targets on her plane’s opposite
wing.
This
book is full of nerves and derring-do, and it more than lives up to its
promise to deliver “thrills, chills, and frills.” Youngsters will be
entranced at the stunts on display, and readers of all ages will be amazed
at the gumption and guts shown by the women daredevils of previous
generations.
Review by
Mark David
Bradshaw, February 20, 2008
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