Touching the Sky: The Flying Adventures of Wilbur and Orville Wright

Six years after their first flight, the Wright Brothers had become celebrities, but most people had still never seen a flying machine. Touching the Sky: The Flying Adventures of Wilbur and Orville Wright by Louise Borden and Trish Marx, illus. by Peter Fiore, tells of their historic flying exhibitions in September 1909. Wilbur Wright demonstrated his flying skills in New York City during the citywide Hudson-Fulton Celebration, flying over the harbor, around the Statue of Liberty and up the Hudson River to Grant's Tomb. Meanwhile, in Germany, 200,000 people gathered to watch as Orville Wright looped and turned gracefully in one exhibition, took the crown prince Friedrich with him as a passenger in another and flew more than 1,500 feet high, setting a record.