Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 01/01/2020 Gr 7 Up—Build a wall. America First. Foreign invaders. While these phrases echo standard Trump rally talking points, they were first uttered by Charles Lindbergh. Fleming digs into her subject's complicated life to uncover his true character. Following the birth of aviation, the skies were dangerous and unruly. Anyone who wanted to fly could. Lindbergh heartily accepted the challenge: as a showman, an army pilot, an airmail pilot, and finally as the first man to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. His unprecedented feat turned him into an overnight sensation and also marked the beginning of his antipathy toward the press. Unfortunately, his fame brought tragedy when his first child was kidnapped and murdered. What followed was the original "trial of the century." Fleming's moment-by-moment narration of Lindbergh's flight and the loss of his child evokes excitement and grief. But there is more to his story. Lindbergh was the creator of an artificial heart, an early environmentalist, an advocate of eugenics, a Nazi sympathizer, and a leader of the America First Committee. He derided a free press and blamed American Jewish people for leading the country into war. He glorified fascism while claiming to be a patriot. This biography, told in short, easy-to-read chapters, at times reads like a suspense novel. Fleming successfully deconstructs the public persona of Lindbergh and highlights how some of the aviator's core values (nationalism, xenophobia) echo the country's current political and social unrest. VERDICT A must-read. Drawing on primary sources, including Lindbergh's own journal, Fleming has crafted a cautionary tale of the downfalls of hero worship.—Cathy DeCampli, Haddonfield Public Library, NJ - Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 01/01/2020 *Starred Review* Though Charles Lindbergh achieved fame and adoration as an accomplished American aviator, he was an overwhelmingly complicated figure. In an eminently readable, at times thrilling, and occasionally deeply disturbing biography, the widely acclaimed Fleming (Amelia Lost, 2011) returns to the skies. In the book's first section, she tracks Lindbergh's meteoric rise to American hero, from his solo flight from New York to Paris to his marriage to Anne Morrow and the kidnapping and subsequent death of their child. In the second half, she maps the fall: Lindbergh's growing disgust with the American press and his anti-Semitism led to an increased admiration of Hitler, and public opinion shifted as he advocated for isolationism and white nationalism. Throughout runs a common thread: as he crossed the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis, as he searched for his missing son, as he argued for eugenics and the environment in turn, Lindbergh was a man obsessed with ending death. Fleming, who takes care to shine the spotlight on Anne as an individual, states that she wanted Charles and Anne to speak for themselves; included dialogue propels the narrative and was taken directly from their journals and letters. Fleming places, in his historical context and ours, a man of intense contradictions. Absorbing and distressing in turns, this utterly prescient capture of a life—and the lives it influenced—is essential in classrooms and for history buffs alike. - Copyright 2020 Booklist.