Reach for the Sky: How Two Brothers Built an Airplane in Chinatown

Written by Evelyn Sue Wong

Illustrated by  Sarah Ang

Plumleaf Press

978-1069093554

40 pp.

Ages 6–9

Releases August 21, 2025 

 

For most people in the 1930s, airline travel was the stuff of dreams. It was expensive and pretty much limited to those in the military, the very rich, or businessmen. For Robert Wong, even purchasing his much-loved model airplane kits only happened because he saved his lunch money. But those kits were his first steps to making his aviation dreams come true.

From Reach for the Sky, written by Evelyn Sue Wong, illustrated by Sarah Ang

Robert would build model airplanes and, with his younger brother Tommy in tow, would fly them until they ended in broken wings. But he kept building them until the toy department manager offered him free kits if he built them at the store. The two brothers enjoyed flying these models, but this was just a prelude to the dream: flying real planes.

From Reach for the Sky, written by Evelyn Sue Wong, illustrated by Sarah Ang

Robert studied books about flying and completed an aviator's course but, before he could attend aviation college, he would need a pilot's license which would require many hours of flying. His solution: build his own plane. Using the plans for the Pietenpol Sky Scout, Robert along with Tommy scouted for the materials he would need to adapt and enlisted the help of his family. When his wooden-framed fuselage with wings stretched twenty-seven feet tip to tip and covered with fabric was completed, his flying instructor took it out for a spin. Though the instructor was pleased with the result, there were some changes that needed to be made. With the help of some experts in aviation and a lot of work, two years after the brothers started this project, Robert took to the skies in a plane that they had built themselves.

From Reach for the Sky, written by Evelyn Sue Wong, illustrated by Sarah Ang

This story is amazing for a number of reasons. One, it is a true story about Robert and Tommy Wong. Secondly, what they were able to accomplish with limited resources at a time when aviation was not a common practice for the majority of the population is extraordinary. Finally, building their own plane was one step in the brothers' careers which led them to further study, work with the air force, opening a civilian flying school, and being inducted as the first Asian Canadians into the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame. Their story, told by Robert's daughter Evelyn Sue Wong, is a testament to not just reaching for the sky but following a passion with determination and perseverance. Evelyn Sue Wong tells their story as an illustrated biography and includes photographs of the brothers, family, and more to not just inspire others to chase their dreams, but to encourage them that, with hard work and support, success is possible.

From Reach for the Sky, written by Evelyn Sue Wong, illustrated by Sarah Ang

Reach for the Sky is illustrated by Singapore's Sarah Ang, who uses Chinese ink and watercolours in a style comparable to traditional Chinese art of landscapes and street scenes. While Sarah Ang emphasizes the logistics of planes and flight and the efforts of the two brothers, there is still a leaning towards the spirit of their work and the promise that much can be accomplished with heart and tenacity.

 

As an illustrated biography, Reach for the Sky honours two Chinese brothers who dreamed of flying in 1930s BC and achieved greatness beyond building a plane. Their story is one of aviation greatness and will inspire those who think they can't or shouldn't or won't be able to do what they aspire to do because of prejudices or limitations in opportunities. Robert and Tommy Wong pursued the almost unimaginable, and others can try too.

Winterkill

Written by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Scholastic

978-1-338-831-41-2

288 pp.

Ages 8-13

September 2022

 

Our way of life was being erased. We had to figure out a way to escape before we were erased too. (pg. 38)

With a war currently raging in Ukraine, it's easy to remember that Ukraine has suffered oppression for centuries. As it sought independence and freedom, the country was repeatedly targeted and made to suffer. Winterkill is but one story of an attempt to quash a people with a strong cultural identity and fervor for autonomy. 

In 1930, 12-year-old Nyl Chorny lives on a small farm with his parents and younger siblings Yulia (11) and Slavko (9) in the village of Felivka near Kharkiv. Ukraine is currently under the control of the Soviet Communists led by Stalin whose five-year-plan to modernise the country is really aimed at hurting Ukrainians by eliminating small family farms and combining them under large collectives called kolkhozes. Some villagers are buying into the lies told by Comrades Tupolev and Chort–Russians charged with governing them–and shock workers promising tractors, increased grain, and better opportunities. But for those like Tato, Nyl's father, the collectivisation is just a replacement for landlords and will have nothing to do with them. Still, they must abide by the demands of Communist workers who inventory all their goods, ban religious faith, and requisition their grain with the threat of being labelled kulaks and executed or deported. Some Communists are foreign specialists like Canadian George White who will be working at the future tractor factory and truly believes in Communism as does his young daughter Alice. Others have just found a new way to bully and exert control and gain wealth at the expense of others.

 

If you want to eat, join the kolkhoz. (pg. 50)

 

Still the family farms as best they can, managing with less after Nyl's Uncle Illya is executed for being a kulak, and Auntie Pawlina and baby cousin Tanya move in with the family. A bumper crop of wheat, millet and corn in the summer of 1930 has them all hopeful again and the family considers leaving the Soviet Union via Auntie's cousins in Ternopil, a city across the border in Polish Ukraine. But all those dreams go up in smoke when soldiers steal all the grain while the families celebrate the harvest.

Relying on foraging, hunting and fishing for food, and no way to get money needed for travel, Nyl and Slavko steal away to work in Kharkiv where the tractor plant needs construction workers. But what they find there is as dismal as at home though they are able to make some money. Still, what they return home to is worse than they could have expected. Whether any of them will ever survive, much less escape, a genocide by starvation and violence is Nyl's story to tell.

Winterkill is a big story. It is so big that I can't possibly reveal all the details and nuances of Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's story in a short review. There are good people and evil ones, both Ukrainian and Russian. There is joy and heartache, resourcefulness and laziness, greed and generosity. And there is oppression. Though much of Winterkill deals with the Holodomor, the 1932-1933 genocide of Ukrainians by starvation, it's a story that's bigger than that. It's about that oppression of people and culture. There is resilience, as Nyl demonstrates with his story, but there is death and destruction and horrific suffering. And Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch tells it with such authenticity that this book of historical fiction could be a biography. Still, she tells it with sensitivity and compassion and allowed this  Ukrainian-Canadian to read it with appreciation, albeit filled with sorrow.

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch will launch Winterkill at the Brantford Public Library’s downtown branch on Thursday, November 24, 2022, at 6 p.m. Copies of the book will be available for purchase from Green Heron Books for signing by the author.  

The Good Fight

Written by Ted Staunton

Illustrated by Josh Rosen

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-6383-5

224 pp.

Ages 10-13

June 2021 

The 1930s were a difficult time. It was the Great Depression, Nazism was growing in Germany and elsewhere, and people were looking to blame others for their hardships. With antisemitism on the rise and prejudice against immigrants a perennial vocation for many, the city of Toronto was primed for a fiasco in the heat of the summer of 1933. It got one.

From The Good Fight by Ted Staunton, illus. by Josh Rosen

Sid Klein and his friend Plug Venditelli have been recruited by Tommy Ryan to be part of his whiz mob, a pickpocket gang. Tommy, who'd been taught by his uncle, would chose their mark and steal from him while Plug, as the stall man, distracted him, before Tommy passed the money on to Sid, the duke man. Though he was full of bravado about his Irish heritage, Tommy was actually Tadeusz Lepofsky and scoffed at Sid and Plug whose heritages–Jewish and Italian– might mark them on the streets of Toronto. Still, with the desperate times, the boys are willing to do what they could to provide extra coins for their families, including selling newspapers, running errands, collecting cockroaches, or stealing.

From The Good Fight by Ted Staunton, illus. by Josh Rosen

But when Sid pockets a swastika pin and learns more about efforts by the Swastika Club and local Nazi sympathizers to stop Jews from using the boardwalk on Balmy Beach, Sid is warned to watch himself. Still Christie Pits, a popular place to watch the city's ball teams play, including the championship games between the Harbord Playground and St. Peter's Church teams, is too inviting to avoid as a location to pick a pocket or two. When the trio of boys is picked up and threatened with jail unless they help the Red Squad–police tasked with putting away union agitators, anarchists and communists whom they believe are all immigrants and Jews–Sid and Plug find themselves caught up in trying to save themselves and protect their families on the night of the infamous Christie Pits riot of August 16, 1933.

From The Good Fight by Ted Staunton, illus. by Josh Rosen

Ted Staunton has penned a number of picture books, early readers, and middle grade and young adult novels including those as part of The Almost Epic Squad and Seven series, but I believe this is his first venture into historical fiction. Still, with his familial connection–his grandfather was the mayor of Toronto at the time of the Christie Pits riot–he ably links a story of the past to issues of prejudice and discrimination and helps us see how those injustices have been perpetrated. From the vile name-calling, violent skirmishes and exclusionary tactics, Toronto was not unconditionally welcoming to all its communities and not the mosaic it was purported to be. And during the Depression, desperation fuelled those prejudices, sparking abominable behaviour and attitudes throughout. But communities like Sid and Plug's overcame and even thrived, making opportunities for themselves, as the epilogue to the main story shares. 

 

By focusing on Sid's story with Plug and their families, Ted Staunton gives us multiple perspectives: that of children, those of immigrant families, and those struggling financially. And, of course, those targeted by hatred. The Good Fight tells us how they felt, how they managed, how they fought. Illustrated by Toronto's Josh Rosen, the story is gritty and distressing, and I suspect young readers will be hopeful that Sid and Plug don't go to jail, that their families aren't thrown out on the streets, that their Jewish and Italian friends will not be attacked, and that those responsible for the Christie Pits riot are brought to justice. From newspaper stories, accurate depictions of the clothing and speech of the day, and social conditions, The Good Fight gives parents and teachers a wonderful opportunity to talk about the past and the need to ensure atrocities such as the Christie Pits riot aren't repeated.

For a time, Toronto was known as Toronto the Good but, like anything, Toronto is neither all good nor all bad. It has moments in history of which is should be immensely proud and others, like the Christie Pits riot, which are a stain on the city's reputation. Making it right begins with telling those stories so that learning might happen and social justice prevail.

Jewel of the Thames: A Portia Adams Adventure

by Angela  Misri

Fierce Ink Press

 978-1-927746-50-9

238 pp.

Ages 12+

March 2014

Take yourself back to London after the turn of the century (19th to 20th, that is), after the death of Queen Victoria and at the beginnings of the city's transformation into a modern city with an underground, electric trams above ground, and a mixture of Gregorian, Victorian, Edwardian and Art Nouveau stylings.  And Scotland Yard working against all nature of crime, sometimes with the help of consulting detectives, the most famous of which was Sherlock Holmes.  But in this London, add a youthful, female version of Mr. Holmes, named Portia Adams, and you have Angela Misri's new young adult book, Jewel of the Thames.

With her mother's death from breast cancer in 1930 Toronto, nineteen-year-old Portia has lost all the family she has ever known: her father, Charles Eagle, to the Great War; her maternal grandmother, Constance Adams; and now her mother, Marie Jameson née Adams.  But the appearance of the elderly and wealthy Mrs. Irene Jones of New Jersey as the only person other than Portia mentioned in her mother's will brings a new guardian into Portia's life, one who will ensure her care and education and allow her to accept her inheritance of the house at 221 Baker Street, London.

So Portia, who chooses to use her mother's maiden name of Adams now, becomes landlady at 221 Baker Street and chooses to live upstairs from her tenants, an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Dawes, and their son Brian, who is completing his Scotland Yard training for a police constable.  This startling life change is nothing compared to Portia's learning that she is the granddaughter of Dr. John Watson, the biographer and friend of 221B Baker Street's most famous resident, Sherlock Holmes.  While puzzled by the secrets both her grandmother and mother kept from her about her heritage, Portia is delighted to learn of her grandfather's work through his long-stored case books and to share her predilection for justice, as well as inductive and deductive reasoning, with Brian Dawes with whom Portia establishes a fast friendship.

While the book is named Jewel of the Thames, it's also the title of the first of three case books shared in Angela Misri's first Portia Adams Adventure.  Jewel of the Thames focuses on a string of burglaries that Brian is investigating for Scotland Yard, and which he discusses with Portia.  Gleaning valuable information about robberies, crime scenes and using disguises from the wealth of case books left to her, Portia pursues possible solutions to the crimes. But, while her skills of logic and detection have earned her the support of her Somerville College professor, Chief Inspector Archer of Scotland Yard, her intrusion into police cases is seen as meddling by Brian's supervisor, Sergeant Michaels, regardless of how he can take advantage of her positive results.

Her second case, A Case of Darkness, comes her way via a classmate, Mr. James Barclay, who requires some discreet inquiries made regarding the strange behaviours of his older sister, Miss Elaine Barclay, particularly in regards to their father's mysterious and debilitating illness.

The final case in this tome is titled Unfound and centers on a missing child aboard the train on which Portia is travelling to Scotland to visit Mrs. Jones for the Christmas holidays.  Even with an eight-hour non-stop journey, the search for the little girl seems impossible, until Portia intervenes.

The inclusion of three cases in one book is very Holmesian (or should that be Conan-Doylely?) but the three are easily tied together by Portia's continuous research into her family, often relying on Mrs. Jones for information.  Ever the traveller, Mrs. Jones pops in randomly to check on her ward and evade or discreetly answer the barrage of questions posed to her by Portia.  Portia is determined to learn everything about why and how her grandmother and mother separated themselves from her British relatives, and what role Mrs. Jones plays in this secret history. 

Angela Misri's research into 1930's London and the books of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson's cases for Jewel of the Thames has obviously been extensive.  Without relying on the smog and poor sanitary conditions of Holmes' turn-of-the-century London to establish atmosphere (no pun intended), Angela Misri easily embeds Portia Adams in a London of many textures, from its landscape to its climate and people, to its politics and society.  The criminals may not be losing themselves in the pea soup smog or crowds in Sherlock Holmes' early years, but they still make use of the bridges, fear, poisons and common practices of the people to get away with their nefarious actions.  

(1)

Luckily Portia Adams is clever but never arrogant (unlike the oft-condescending Holmes), regularly questioning herself and chastizing herself about her mistakes.  Moreover, she attempts to use her skills to make things right, whether it be for a banished cat, a sibling rival or a victim of abuse.  She wraps her logic and solutions in compassion, recognizing that sometimes good people do bad things.  It is that thoughtfulness and sincere modesty that make Portia Adams a finer detective than Holmes could ever have been, and a far more worthy character for readers to admire and follow. And follow Portia Adams I will, into her subsequent cases, into resolving the secrets of her family history and into an upcoming romance with a character already-introduced that isn't Brian Dawes.  The suspense is killing me!  That's one mystery only Angela Misri can solve, with Book 2 in her Portia Adams Adventure series.


(1) This word cloud in the silhouette of Portia Adams was created by Angela Misri and retrieved from her website for her Portia Adams Adventures at http://aportiaadamsadventure.com/

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WANT TO WIN AN eCOPY of JEWEL OF THE THAMES?

As part of the Jewel of the Thames Blog Tour, running from March 17 to April 3, Fierce Ink Press has generously offered an ebook giveaway of Jewel of the Thames for a reader of CanLit for LittleCanadians.  Leave a comment below (before noon (EST) on March 19, 2014) explaining why you'd like to read Jewel of the Thames, for your chance to win a copy of the ebook.

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TOMORROW

Watch this site tomorrow for a Q & A with Jewel of the Thames author Angela Misri as part of Jewel of the Thames Blog Tour, for revealing thoughts about her new series and more.

The Whole Truth

Written by Kit Pearson
HarperCollins Canada
978-1-55468-852-4
261 pp.
Ages 9+
2011

Hidden away is the truth.  But whose truth?  Which truth?  All ten-year-old Polly knows are the rules, as itemized by her fifteen-year-old sister, Maud, about what she should or shouldn't do regarding their father.  She's not to tell anyone what happened; she's not to think about Daddy or what happened; she's not to trust anyone but Maud; she needs to be brave; and she must be well-behaved with her new guardian, a grandmother they don't know, and other family.  That's a tall order for a young girl in 1932, displaced from her home in Winnipeg to Kingfisher Island off the B.C. coast, moving in with strangers, missing her dad terribly, and soon to lose her sister to a private school in Victoria.

Polly tries so hard to follow the rules.  Luckily her new family i.e., grandmother Noni, Great Aunt Jean and Great Uncle Rand, and their son Uncle Gregor, embraces them with much love, understanding, and a very comfortable lifestyle.  Still following the rules, Polly takes comfort in writing letters, which she hides, to her father.  But nothing ever stays the same, even the truth as she has been told it.

When bits of the truth about her father are revealed, and then Polly takes on another truth that she hides from almost everyone, she finally recognizes the subjectivity of truth and its nebulous nature.

Kit Pearson takes us into the 1930's when, still reeling from the stock market crash and the consequent depression, families were forced to make difficult decisions and separation was not unusual. But life on the fictional Gulf Island seems less trying, particularly for Polly's wealthy grandmother, perhaps reflective of the smaller community and relative isolation from cities with their higher populations and few jobs.  As such, Polly often feels conflicted regarding their meager existence in Winnipeg with their father compared to their rich life (both in experiences and financially) without him, another truth that may or may not be accepted.

Although Polly's revelation on the last page about the nature of truth seemed somewhat pat to this reader, I needed to remind myself that truth can be what we need it to be and, for a young girl dealing with family secrets and disappointments, Polly reconciled the truth about truth for herself alone.