Beryl Markham is Real Life Pippi Longstocking
What if the characters in a chapter book are …
The Daughter:
1/3 Pippi Longstocking
1/3 Caddie Woodlawn (minus mom and siblings)
1/3 Amelia Earhart/Elizabeth Cady Stanton/Fearless Women in History.
The Dad:
An English version of Captain Von Trapp from The Sound of Music but without so many children
AND they lived in British East Africa (now Kenya) … wait, it gets better. The daughter gets raised as a murani (warrior) by the local Nandi tribe where they raise Thoroughbred horses. The daughter is an expert at training horses and one of the first women to get a commercial pilot’s license which leads to her breaking a record for being the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic! During her childhood, she participates in a lion hunt, gets mauled by a different lion, gets expelled from school, outsmarts a tutor that physically abuses her, and overcomes the school bully.
What is most delightful about this great historical fiction chapter book is that these characters are actually real people!
Promise the Night by Michaela MacColl
Beryl Markham (26 October 1902 – 3 August 1986) was a British-born Kenyan aviatrix, adventurer, and racehorse trainer. During the pioneer days of aviation, she became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. She is now primarily remembered as the author of the memoir West with the Night. from Wikipedia
There were some parts of Beryl’s story that made me wonder to what extent it shaped her life. Her mother abandoned both Beryl and her father to return to England with Beryl’s brother. I don’t know if the brother was younger or older than Beryl. This struck me as strange … not the “can’t-live-in-a-mud-house-in-the-bush” part but leaving one child behind while taking the other.
To what extent did this make Beryl more of a wild child than if her brother had remained in Africa as well? Beryl never saw her mother again until she was an adult, but in an ironic twist of fate, her mother returned to Africa decades later.
Her father had a live-in housekeeper/girlfriend and this caused scandal causing him to be shunned socially. Beryl’s only companionship was from the Nandi tribe that did work for her father. Was it Beryl’s lack of female companionship as a child that made her so adventurous?
Promise the Night covers Beryl’s childhood with inserts that document her aviation achievement. In real life, Beryl writes a memoir, West with the Night, that becomes a literary sensation and goes on to Hollywood to consult on aviation for films. Ultimately, she ends up back in Nairobi, successfully training horses. She dies at the age of 83.
To get a feel for Promise the Night, the first chapter of the book is here!
I’m part of a blog tour. Please check out my fellow bloggers on the tour:
1/16 Middle Grade Mafioso
1/17 The Book Cellar
1/18 Mother Daughter Book Club
1/19 Stiletto Storytime
1/20 amberjkeyser.com
1/23 Royal Reviews
1/24 There’s A Book
1/25 YA Book Shelf
1/26 The Children’s and Teens’ Book Connection
1/27 Black ‘n Gold Girl’s Book Spot
1/31 PragmaticMom
There is also a great review by my friend The Fourth Musketeer whose blog specializes in children’s and young adult historical fiction.
To win a copy of Promise the Night, please leave a comment. You can get additional chances to win by Liking my Facebook page or Following me on Twitter. Please just mention what you did in the comment.
p.s. Here’s an interesting link on Beryl Markham, the British Amelia Earhart and why Beryl remains largely unknown.
“Markham’s feat was, if anything, more remarkable than Earhart’s, because she flew against the prevailing winds. But Markham has been largely forgotten, while Earhart remains a figure of fascination (she is currently getting the full Hollywood treatment in a biopic starring Hilary Swank).” from The Telegraph
To examine any of the items listed, please click on image of item. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Follow PragmaticMom’s board Multicultural Books for Kids on Pinterest.
Follow PragmaticMom’s board Children’s Book Activities on Pinterest.
My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Massachusetts Book Award Long List
- Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
- Starred review from School Library Journal
- Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
- 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
- Green Earth Book Award Long List
- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me
AMAZING review!!! Love how you compare to literacy characters we all know. & sounds like an amazing story and I love biographies – count me in!
To Ann,
Thanks so much for your kind words. They really mean a lot to me! Beryl makes Amelia Earhart look like a rookie. I am amazed that we never hear about her in the United States because she’s just an amazing woman and role model. Let me know if you want to borrow it. I can mail to you!
I’ve never heard of her either, but this book looks phenomenal! Thanks, I’m so over Amelia Earhart now. Rookie indeed.
I’m not entering the drawing, not because it doesn’t sound fabulous, but because I would love to see someone with a daughter get this book – it sounds like a great, motivating book for a young girl. While my reluctant reader would love the adventure, he would immediately say “no way!” to reading about a girl. Sigh. I’ll make him a feminist yet!
I read West With the Night in my first book club 20 years ago. It’s an awesome book and I recommend to anyone. Very reminiscent, to me, of Isaak Dineson’s Out of Africa.
Just found your website. Am a retired children’s librarian and will visit often.
To Laurie,
Thanks so much for your kind words! I look forward to reading more of your comments! Thanks again!!
How did I miss this? Just put this on my Mock Newbery list!
To The Brain Lair,
I really enjoyed Promise the Night and I hope that middle school girls read it, enjoy it and are inspired by it. Beryl was a remarkable person!