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Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith has been on my list for a long time - I have it dated to March 2012, although I suspect that's only when I wrote it down; I feel like it first came to my attention in a discussion around the Westerfeld Leviathan books probably somewhat earlier. Anyways.
YA fiction about a young Black woman pilot who decides to pass as white to enlist as a WASP pilot during WWII. This was a fascinating book - I have read endless girls-disguised-as-boys stories, but I think this was the first time I ever read a racial passing story. (After some investigation, I believe we studied the movie "Imitation of Life" in one of my college English classes, but I don't remember anything about it except something about color film saturation something. But it doesn't seem to be from the POV of the passing character.)
I was really struck by how much scarier and more awful I found it than I have ever found a gender-passing story. The menace of white racism was palpable and the main character's pain over having to deny her family to pursue her calling was powerful. It just felt so wrong and frustrating and ugly that that was the position white supremacy put her in, as opposed to what always felt to me like the inherently desirable state of gender multiplicity in gender-passing stories, *prompted* by the plot/unfair gender rules but not necessarily *imposed*. (I have become aware in my later years that not everybody finds the idea of gender fluidity/superposition/misdirection/unresolvability automatically appealing and that some people might experience that kind of pain over betraying their true gender... for trans people, that makes perfect sense to me, and then I sort of have to back-derive hardcore cis-ness by implication...)
(Oh, wait, and I have just thought of one other passing story I can think of, some movie we watched in high school about a Jewish boy trying to survive the Holocaust by passing as not Jewish? I remember almost nothing of it, except that it was upsetting... seems to be Europa Europa, while my memory of the final scene is apparently a memory of the end of Gallipoli, an entirely separate film about a different war. Welp.)
Anyways, there's a lot of really interesting stuff and strong moments in this book, from the fun stuff about historical piloting to the hard stuff like looking at how colorism divides and hurts the Black characters. Wasn't 100% for me - there was a romance with a middle-aged flight instructor that I totally read as sexual harassment at first and was never able to buy into as a romance. (But (spoilers) ( Read more... )) But I would definitely recommend it if you're interested in aviation or race in WWII or intersectionality or plucky young women main characters.
(I had wondered before I read it if it might be suitable for Junie, who likes plucky young women characters, but I have concluded that it is not - there's an upsetting character death that I guess she could maybe handle (given that she's now read some disturbing stuff in Wolf Hollow and Towers Falling) but there's also (historically realistic) use of the n-word, which is, like, a loaded gun of a word that I don't think she's quite ready for the responsibility of handling. In a couple of years maybe?)
YA fiction about a young Black woman pilot who decides to pass as white to enlist as a WASP pilot during WWII. This was a fascinating book - I have read endless girls-disguised-as-boys stories, but I think this was the first time I ever read a racial passing story. (After some investigation, I believe we studied the movie "Imitation of Life" in one of my college English classes, but I don't remember anything about it except something about color film saturation something. But it doesn't seem to be from the POV of the passing character.)
I was really struck by how much scarier and more awful I found it than I have ever found a gender-passing story. The menace of white racism was palpable and the main character's pain over having to deny her family to pursue her calling was powerful. It just felt so wrong and frustrating and ugly that that was the position white supremacy put her in, as opposed to what always felt to me like the inherently desirable state of gender multiplicity in gender-passing stories, *prompted* by the plot/unfair gender rules but not necessarily *imposed*. (I have become aware in my later years that not everybody finds the idea of gender fluidity/superposition/misdirection/unresolvability automatically appealing and that some people might experience that kind of pain over betraying their true gender... for trans people, that makes perfect sense to me, and then I sort of have to back-derive hardcore cis-ness by implication...)
(Oh, wait, and I have just thought of one other passing story I can think of, some movie we watched in high school about a Jewish boy trying to survive the Holocaust by passing as not Jewish? I remember almost nothing of it, except that it was upsetting... seems to be Europa Europa, while my memory of the final scene is apparently a memory of the end of Gallipoli, an entirely separate film about a different war. Welp.)
Anyways, there's a lot of really interesting stuff and strong moments in this book, from the fun stuff about historical piloting to the hard stuff like looking at how colorism divides and hurts the Black characters. Wasn't 100% for me - there was a romance with a middle-aged flight instructor that I totally read as sexual harassment at first and was never able to buy into as a romance. (But (spoilers) ( Read more... )) But I would definitely recommend it if you're interested in aviation or race in WWII or intersectionality or plucky young women main characters.
(I had wondered before I read it if it might be suitable for Junie, who likes plucky young women characters, but I have concluded that it is not - there's an upsetting character death that I guess she could maybe handle (given that she's now read some disturbing stuff in Wolf Hollow and Towers Falling) but there's also (historically realistic) use of the n-word, which is, like, a loaded gun of a word that I don't think she's quite ready for the responsibility of handling. In a couple of years maybe?)
