Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator

Tanaka, Shelley. Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator. New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2008.

In 2009, Shelly Tanaka won the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children. This is a picture book a child that contains attractive illustrations and information on the biography of the famous female aviator who fascinates Americans. It is a well written story that has a lot of text on the pages focusing on Earhart's flying journey rather than solely describing her personal life. The book contains numerous visuals that illustrate the reality of the aviators flight across the transatlantic and historical photographs.

Resources to Support the Text

Amelia Earhart Biography

This website provides the students with a biography of the first female aviator to fly solo transatlantic in 1935. The biography is sponsored from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Aeronautics Division. This website provides insight to all the women pilots that have photographs or artifacts in the museum. The site lists the contributions and participation that the women had from the earliest racing pilots to women that have gone to space. The students will be able to search biographical sketches in alphabetical order of female pilots to get a better understanding of women in aviation and space history.

Amelia Earhart's Second and Final Flight

This link is a map illustrating the route of Amelia's Earhart's second and last attempt of flight from June 1, 1937 to July 2, 1937. This map clearly labels Earhart's flight from where she took off to where to hope to land. There is a mystery behind Earhart's disappearance of is still unknown today. The students will be able to visually track the route that led to the disappearnce of a famous woman in the world.

Key Vocabulary

Atlantic Ocean, Amelia Earhart, aviator, legend, heap, shimmering, veils

Reading Strategy

Before reading the text, the students can complete a KWL chart. They can write down what they already know about Amelia Earhart and what they want to learn about her. After reading the text, the students can finish the chart with what they learned after reading the nonfiction text.

Writing Activity

It is still a mystery to this day about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart during her flight through the Pacific Ocean to the Howland Island. Explain your theory surrounding this controversial issue depicting what you think happened to Amelia Earhart.