A Junior Library Guild selection Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators Official 2016 Summer Reading List In this biography for middlegrade readers Nancy Roe Pimm tells the story of Geraldine Jerrie Mock the first woman to fly solo around the world. In her trusty Cessna The Spirit of Columbusalso known as Charlieshe traveled from Columbus Ohio on an eastward route that totaled nearly twentythree thousand miles and took almost a month. Overcoming wind ice mechanical problems and maybe even sabotage Mock persevered. Mock caught the aviation bug at seven years old when she rode in a Ford Trimotor plane with her parents. In high school she displayed a talent for math and science and she was the only woman in her aeronautical engineering classes at Ohio State University. Although she then settled into domestic life she never lost her interest in flying. What began as a joking suggestion from her husband to fly around the world prompted her to pursue her childhood dream. But the dream became a race as another woman Joan Merriam Smith also sought to be the first to circle the globe. Even though Mock beat Smith and accomplished what her heroine Amelia Earhart had died trying to do her feat was overshadowed by the Vietnam War and other world events. Now Pimm introduces Mock to a new generation of adventurers.