THE YEAR WE LEARNED TO FLY
By Jacqueline Woodson
Illustrated by Rafael López
LOUJAIN DREAMING SUNFLOWERS
A story inspired by Loujain al-Hathloul
By Lina al-Hathloul and Uma Mishra-Newbery
Illustrated by Rebecca Green
When I was about 5 years old, I lay in my bed and remembered something incredible: I used to be able to fly! I could see myself flying in the air so clearly, like one of the Darling kids in ‘Peter Pan’. I remember I must have flown, and I wondered why I didn’t remember how to do it.
In “The Year We Learned to Fly,” by Jacqueline Woodson, with illustrations by Rafael López (who also collaborated with Woodson on “The Day You Begin”), we meet a sister and brother trapped in the cocoon of their city apartment: “That was the spring when it seemed like the rain would never stop and the thunder roared so loud that we weren’t allowed outside.” Although there are several situations that the children encounter that are more emotionally charged than this one, the author decides to first present what is perhaps the hardest and easiest feeling any child can overcome: boredom. Their grandmother tells them to use their “beautiful and brilliant mind” to fly away from it.
“Raise your arms, close your eyes, take a deep breath,” she instructs them over and over throughout the book. That’s the way to face and overcome every challenge in life, from being mad at your sibling to moving to a new neighborhood.
And how did? she learn to fly? ‘From the people who came before’, who were physically chained. The ancestors of the children, for whom flying seemed really impossible, were able to learn because “no one can ever captivate your beautiful and brilliant mind”. (Woodson, winner of the National Book Award for “Brown Girl Dreaming,” tips her hat in an author’s note to Virginia Hamilton’s “The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales.”)
López, a two-time Pura Belpré medalist, gives Woodson’s story an atmosphere as poetic and colorful as the butterflies in which the siblings, and then the children who feared a new family on their street, metamorphose at the end.
In “Loujain Dreams of Sunflowers,” by Lina al-Hathloul and Uma Mishra-Newbery, with illustrations by Rebecca Green, we meet a little girl who is already know she will fly: “not right away, but definitely.” At the moment, only boys are given the privilege. Women’s equality is a mirage in so many parts of the world, and this clever story brings the ongoing struggle to achieve it in sharp and poignant illumination. Since Loujain is a child, she has not been exposed to the constraints of society. So she is convinced that things can change simply because she thinks they can. Her dream of flying over a field of dazzling sunflowers is shattered every morning when she sees her father flap his wings and leave her behind. What gives the story its extraordinary spirit is the fact that she is angry about the injustice and is not afraid to fight it. She’s also not shocked when her classmates laugh at her for daring to think she can do anything a boy can do.
Family plays a big part in Loujain’s realization of her dream. Her mother convinces her father that change will only come if he supports her. With his help, she finally flies off with him one morning.
This is where the illustrations explode, giving the story a magical quality. Brilliant colors seem to lift Loujain and her father into another world. The sunflowers sparkle and the joy of her achievement is palpable.
But there is a bitter edge to victory. Society is not ready to let girls fly, and she is being convicted of breaking the law. Her rebellion makes the front page of the newspaper. She feels that everyone is watching her as she walks down the street. However, the ending of the book is powerful. Loujain sees a young girl tugging at her father’s shirt and pointing to the wing: “Baba, Baba, teach me to fly,” she begs. “I want to see the sunflowers too!” If we learn in an afterword that the real Loujain al-Hathloul (Lina’s sister) is a women’s rights activist who spearheaded the effort to change the Saudi Arabian laws banning women from driving (laws she was imprisoned for because she violation), we can request an avalanche of these.
The two books ask similar questions: How do we learn to fly? Who can help us? Once we fly, what comes next? And both teach us that everyone has the ability to overcome adversity. Flying is the metaphor that turns this good advice into stories that take to the skies.
Besides, the mystery of my flying memory was solved decades later. I was the lucky father of a toddler who learned to walk. As she staggered down the hall, I suddenly grabbed her from behind and lifted her high above my head in the air. I put her in her crib and went back to my study. Then it dawned on me: she is still learning to walk. She may think she was just flying, just like the butterflies in her room. Perhaps she too will remember that she once could fly.