We Own the Sky
How can you hate someone so cool? Rodman Philbrick’s latest novel answers that question with storytelling as graceful and death-defying as the stunts he immortalizes in We Own the Sky. Loosely based on the courageous, record-breaking aviator Ruth Law, Philbrick sets his story in 1924 Maine and follows the fictional Ruthie Reynard and her flying circus.
We learn about Ruthie Reynard and her team of skilled stunt performers through the eyes of her young cousins, twelve-year-old Davy and his big sister, Jo. The pair lost their mother and father to the terrible conditions at a Biddeford textile mill. Homeless and destitute, they stand at their mother’s grave, desperately afraid, when an elegant Cadillac pulls into the cemetery, and Ruthie Reynard, their future, emerges from the driver’s seat.
Davy and Jo join the flying circus and plunge into a world of excitement. Their new family of kind, talented performers allows them, for the first time, to experience the joy of childhood. However, that joy quickly turns to fear when a large and well-connected chapter of the KKK attempts to drive the circus—and its French and Italian immigrant performers—from Maine.
Philbrick introduces the concepts of domestic terrorism and white supremacy honestly and appropriately for young readers. The author does not gloss over the unspeakable acts of this hate group; he skillfully unpacks these ideas through Davy’s eyes, so young readers can slowly understand the insidious and omnipresent hatred in America. I highly recommend it for ages 8 and up.
