Adult Non-Fiction

Women Who Fly: True Stories by Women Airline Pilots

By International Society of Women Airline Pilots 40th Commemorative Edition (2018)

Women airline pilots share their stories, including an emergency landing in Russia, a flight over Antarctica, and a trip to Washington, D.C., to accept a Congressional Medal of Honor. The book includes more than 70 photos, and all proceeds support the International Society of Women Airline Pilots, ISA+21 scholarship fund.

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History

By Keith O’Brien (2019) Fly Girls weaves together the stories of Florence Klingensmith, a high school dropout from Fargo, N.D., Ruth Elder, an Alabama divorcée, Amelia Earhart, already famous, but not the most skilled, Ruth Nichols, who defied her aristocratic family’s expectations, and Louise Thaden, the young mother of two who got her start selling coal in Wichita, Kansas. Together, they fought for the chance to fly and race airplanes — and in 1936, one of them would beat the men in the toughest air race of them all.

The Fly Girls Revolt: The Story of the Women Who Kicked Open the Door to Fly in Combat

By Eileen A. Bjorkman (2023) A retired U.S. Air Force colonel from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Bjorkman served as a flight test engineer, instructor and test squadron commander, has more than 700 flight hours as a flight test engineer in more than 25 different aircraft including the F-4, F-16, C-130 and C-141. Here, she chronicles the path to 1993, when U.S. women earned the right to fly in combat: from World War II’s Women’s Airforce Service Pilots in World War II, to women flying combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bjorkman did extensive research, interviews with women who served in the 1970s and 1980s, and drew on her personal experiences in the Air Force to describe how women fought for the right to enter combat and be treated as equal partners in the U.S. military.

Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II

By Katherine Sharp Landdeck (2021), an associate professor of history at Texas Woman’s University, the home of the WASP archives.

Nancy Love and Jacqueline Cochran helped initiate the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), giving women a chance to serve in World War II, and to prove that women aviators were just as skilled as men. This is the story of the 1,100 women who joined the WASPs, helped train male pilots for service abroad, and ferried bombers and pursuits across the country.

Children and Young Adults

Skyward: The Story of Female Pilots in WWII

By Sally Deng (2018) Ages: 7-12

In this beautifully illustrated book Deng follows girls from the United States, Russia, and England from their first encounters with airplanes circa 1927, their struggle to overcome prejudices about what was possible for females, to their exploits as women in the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), helping win World War II.

Women Aviators: 26 Stories of Pioneer Flights, Daring Missions, and Record-Setting Journeys (Women of Action)

By Karen Bush Gibson (2020) Ages: 12 and up

Gibson profiles 26 women aviators who overcame sexism and doubt to meet challenges both in the sky and on the ground, like barnstormer Bessie Coleman and racers like Louise Thaden, who bested Amelia Earhart and Pancho Barnes to win the 1929 Women’s Air Derby, sometimes called the Powder Puff Derby.

High Flyers: 15 Inspiring Women Aviators and Astronauts (Women of Power)

By Ann McCallum Staats (2024) Ages: 12 and up

Meet Black Hawk helicopter pilot turned congressperson, Tammy Duckworth; hot air balloonist Edgora McEwan; and medevac pilot Dede Murawsky. Also featured are commercial and military aviators like the Coast Guard’s Ronaqua Russell, the first African American female to receive the prestigious Air Medal.

Also, Tammie Jo Shults tells of catastrophic engine failure while commanding Southwest’s Flight 1380 with 148 souls aboard.

Pilots share their experiences in military high-performance jets, the Stratotanker, flying in the Blue Angels, and astronauts tell of launching in the cramped Russian Soyus rocket, orbiting Earth while conducting critical science experiments, or living aboard the International Space Station.

These women all overcame obstacles and challenges, but overcame them to fulfill their dreams of flight.

Away in My Airplane

Margaret Wise Brown (2019 reprint) Ages: 3-5

From the author of Goodnight Moon, this child’s picture book has all the charm of Brown’s other books. It has lots of aerial views of the protagonist’s community. The main character is androgynist looking, so while the pilot’s gender isn’t specifically mentioned, they could be male or female. Either way, it’s charming.