Amelia and Me by Heather Stemp

It is predawn, on an August morning, in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, 1931. Twelve-year-old Ginny Ross quietly slips out of bed, dresses and manages to sneak out of her home through the basement without waking her mom, six-year-old brother Billy, Nana and Papa. Ginny, along with her cousin Pat Cron and her best friend Jennie Mae Stevenson are headed to Harbour Grace airstrip to see the City of New York take off. 

The plane, with pilot Mr. George Brown and owner Mr. Henry Mears had landed the previous afternoon on a stopover before continuing their planned flight around the world. The Harbour Grace Standard reported that their journey would continue this morning with their departure at seven a.m. but Ginny overheard Uncle Harry, the airport supervisor telling Papa that they actually planned to leave before dawn.

The three girls run to the airfield where Pat tells them the City of New York with be the ninth plane to fly from Harbour Grace across the Atlantic. Jennie, whose father is the night watchman for the airport, wants them to get to her dad's shack. If they are found around the plane or on the runway, she's afraid her father will get in trouble. But as Jennie is leading Pat and Ginny to the shack, Ginny breaks away and runs over to the plane. Once in the plane, she slips into the pilot's seat, pretending she's flying over Harbour Grace. However, her daydream abruptly ends when Brown, Mears and Uncle Harry are driven to the plane by Mr. Stevenson. When Mr. Stevenson leaves, Ginny overhears the men arguing. 

George Brown believes the strong wind makes an early morning takeoff risky but Henry Mears wants the speed record. Mears puts his dog Tailwind into the plane and the three men walk to the end of the runway. Ginny jumps out of the plane but badly injures her right knee when she bangs it against the edge of the wheel cover. Ginny is seen limping away into the rocks by Mr. Mears but she is able to hide from him. They decide to go ahead with the flight but disaster strikes when the plane crashes into the rocks. 

Ginny is horrified and tries to run to help but collapses on the runway. Thankfully both men are saved, but Tailwind is not found. While Uncle Harry gets the car to pick up the two injured men, Ginny limps home. There, Llewellyn Crane, who works for Ginny's Papa in the store, helps her upstairs. Papa carries her to Doc Cron's to get stitches. At the doctor's office, Ginny tells Mr. Mears she wants to be a pilot but he is dismissive, telling her flying is not for girls. Then, seeing her split knee, Mears becomes angry, suggesting that Ginny is to blame for the crash. Both Mr. Brown and Uncle Harry try to convince him otherwise but Mr. Mears decides to speak with the constable.

After Doc Cron stitches Ginny's knee, she has to deal with her mom's anger at being at the airfield. Ginny's mom believes that planes are for men only. Pat visits Ginny while she's resting in bed and shows her a piece of metal she's found from the wreck of the City of New York plane. They look over her scrapbook of Amelia Earhart, who Ginny finds thrilling.

When Ginny receives a letter from Jennie Mae telling her that her actions at the airfield may cost her father his job, she gets Llew to take her in his wagon pulled by his black Labrador to see the constable at the jail. At the jail Ginny appeals to Constable Watts telling him she didn't cause the crash and that Mr. Stevenson didn't know she was at the airfield or in the plane. As they are leaving the jail, Llew tells Ginny about the one hundred dollar reward to find Mr. Mears' dog Tailwind. Ginny is certain she knows where the dog might be and she has Llew take her to the rocky area near the airfield. There they find Tailwind and return to the Stevenson's farm to show Jennie. They also learn that her father has been exonerated in the crash. At the Archibald Hotel, Jennie Mae, Llew and Ginny present Mr. Mears with his dog. Ginny splits the reward three ways, so they each receive thirty-five dollars.

At home, Ginny gives some of her money to Papa to help pay for a shipment from Bowring Brothers. This leaves her with ten dollars to put towards her future flying lessons. But suddenly her mother grabs the money, telling Ginny it will do fine for new material for winter coats. Stunned at her mother's meanness, Ginny becomes even more determined to take flying lessons.

To that end, later that night Ginny decides to write Amelia Earhart to ask for her help. She confides that like her, she wants to be a pilot and that she needs to plan to take lessons. To get around her mother's antagonism towards planes and flying, Ginny uses Uncle Harry's address as the return address. 

As her leg heals, Ginny faces more challenges both at school where she experiences bullying and at home regarding her desire to become a pilot. Her mother is determined to stop Ginny from pursuing her dream of flying. But the more Ginny's mother attempts to thwart her daughter's dream, the more determined Ginny becomes. Eventually Ginny makes a drastic choice that ultimately helps her achieve what she most needs: the support of Amelia Earhart and a future as a pilot. Even more, Ginny is a small part of  Amelia Earhart's historic milestone in women's aviation!

Discussion

Amelia and Me is a fictional story based on some of the real life experiences of author Heather Stemp's family. Ginny Ross, the main character in the novel was Heather Stemp's aunt while Billy Ross was her father. Papa (Joseph Ross) and Nana (Ross) were Heather's great-grandparents who owned a household goods store in Harbour Grace. As in the novel, Uncle Harry Archibald was the real life supervisor of the Harbour Grace airstrip and Aunt Rose Archibald owned the Archibald Hotel where pilots and newspaper reporters often stayed. As in the novel, Ginny Ross really did meet Amelia Earhart prior to her transatlantic flight where she landed in Ireland.

Using family members, and the setting of Harbour Grace, Stemp weaves an engaging story about a young girl determined to follow Amelia Earhart's trailblazing path and become a female pilot. Twelve-year-old Ginny Ross is determined to forge her own path and become an aviatrix. Ginny believes her draw towards flying may be due partly to the fact that a plane offers her a place where she feels she finally belongs. But Ginny also wonders if maybe her attraction to flying is because she's looking for something she can excel at.

 

This sets up a source of conflict between Ginny and her mother who believes planes are for men and who doesn't understand Ginny's obsession with planes. After a fight at school when Ginny wins the reward money for finding Tailwind, Ginny's mother is so furious she tells her she won't be seeing her friends and must only go to school. When her mother discovers Amelia Earhart's letter she destroys it and tells Ginny she will no longer be attending school but instead will be working full time. In her letter to Ginny, Amelia had advised her to finish school first before taking flying lessons. Not finishing school means an end to the possibility of becoming a pilot. So Ginny, in a show of grit and determination, runs away to Boston to find Amelia Earhart. Eventually, upon her return home, Ginny confronts her mother about her plan to become a pilot. Her mother tells Ginny that she doesn't believe she has what it takes and that she will fail. Where Ginny sees possibilities, her mother sees failure. Even meeting Amelia Earhart doesn't really change Ginny's mom's perspective. It is only after Amelia's successful transatlantic flight that Ginny's mother reveals her fear of losing her daughter. When Ginny outlines her plans and offers to help support their family, only then does her mother begin to relent.

 

Heather Stemp has crafted an interesting story with an endearing heroine, that is true to the Depression-era. The author incorporates many historical facts about life in the Dominion of Newfoundland (before it became a province of Canada) as well as during the Depression, that readers will find interesting. The novel also captures some of the interest that was so prevalent surrounding the exploits of Amelia Earhart as well as the interest generally in aviation during this era. Ginny's determination to follow a different path than that of her grandmother and mother, was part of the trend of young women working to forge new opportunities for themselves: to be better educated, to do the same things men were doing and to break free of the social and family expectations about what was proper for a young woman.

Amelia and Me is the first book in the Ginny Ross series. Stemp has included many photographs of the real-life people and places in the story, as well as a map of Harbour Grace and a Glossary of terms and words used in the  novel. 

Book Details:

Amelia and Me by Heather Stemp
Halifax, NS:  Nimbus Publishing Ltd.    2020
238 pp.