Violet the Pilot

If you are looking for a book that will inspire your daughter in STEM fields, then this book is not for you. If anything, this book will discourage girls from learning more about science and engineering. There a few key reasons for this which I will detail below.1. Violet has super-human intelligence that your child does not have. By the age of 2, Violet could fix "any" appliance. No child is that smart. And if anything, this will reinforce to your daughter that she is not smart enough for engineering, because [of course] she was not fixing all appliances by the age of 2.2. Violet's engineering marvels appear to work the first time, every time. This is not how amateur engineering works. Amateur engineering means dealing with more failures than successes. Once again, your daughter will read this and think that she should give up if she isn't succeeding when first attempting to build things.3. Violet's engineering projects are not remotely realistic. Her flying inventions are clearly too heavy and will not provide nearly enough lift. I know this is a children's book, but some scientific accuracy would have been nice. A single panel could have shown Violet reducing the weight or increasing the lift of her flying machines, but there is nothing like that here.Girls showing interest in STEM fields is under served topic, unfortunately this book does nothing to adequately fill this niche.

Like other reviewers, I have issues with this book and the messages it sends to girls. My biggest complaint is the fact that when Violet dreams about winning the competition, she fantasizes that maybe then the kids at school would be nice to her. I think pleasing a group of people who have gone out of their way to insult and torment you is not, or shouldn't be, what motivates anyone to do anything, and it's definitely not a message I want my daughter to learn. I still give this book four stars, one, because it features an intelligent, kind-hearted girl who excels in a field that is not stereotypically "girly", and two, because the book opens the door to conversations about these problematic issues. I've asked my daughter why she thinks the other kids make fun of Violet, and I take the opportunity to voice my opinion that dumb people tend to make fun of things they don't understand or couldn't accomplish themselves; we've talked about Violet's decision to sacrifice something important to her to save a group of kids who didn't do anything to deserve her help, and the importance of their approval later when, btw, no apologies are offered to Violet.For me, the book provides an opportunity to talk about the importance of being who you are, of daring to excel despite pushback (a big challenge for girls and women even in 2017), and of giving others' opinion of you, whether it be good or bad, the value it deserves.

In a nutshell: Violet is a mechanical genius who lives next door to a junkyard and is able to build fully functioning airplanes out of spatulas and row boats. She doesn’t have any friends, except her dog Orville, and the kids at school like to bully her. One day she sees an advertisement for an air show that happens to take place on the date of my birthday. (It’s a bit uncanny how these fortuitous details keep showing up in the books we read. Further cementing my favorite color, my birthday… all sorts of things I need to be sure to drum into these kids' malleable little heads.) Spoiler alert: In the end, Violet doesn’t get to fly in the air show, but she wins an award and recognition from her entire community by saving a troop of drowning Boy Scouts in her latest homemade jet.This book hits on all sorts of important topics including bullying, engineering, community service, and feasibility. The illustrations are super cute. Kids like pictures of people with bugs in their teeth. It’s still unclear to me if the bully twins are also in the boating accident. I’d recommend discussing this with your book club. I find the end of the story takes kind of a strange, unexpected twist that leaves me wondering if it should end differently? Maybe it’s just me.Families can talk about: What is bullying and what should you say and do? Can kids really build real airplanes that fly out of household objects? Even if you think it will fly, is it a good idea to jump off of anything high? What could happen? What is the FAA? And with young listeners, is Violet a piLot or a piRate?

It's a cute book, five stars for story. I'm purchasing as a gift though, and it came with a corner bent straight up over an inch and the middle pages were even wrinkled since it was sent in a soft package. This happened last year with other books. I reordered and book it's still bent on corner but at least pages weren't wrinkled. I have it sitting under a stack of records now, hoping to flatten it out.Update: about a week under the weight, corner is still bent up an inch. Pack your books better, Amazon!

My 4 year old granddaughter just loved it and wanted me to read it to her over and over again. Violet is a strong, female.character who has interests in non-traditional activities. This book shows Violet building airplanes using found junk from her father's junkyard. Violet follows her dreams and in the end is successful.

This is a lovely story with wonderful illustrations. Unfortunately, the author doesn't allow Violet to simply be an awesome girl--he instead describes her as "different than the other girls," who are only interested in tea parties. Just once I would like to read a book that doesn't imply that the heroine is the only awesome girl out there (or that there is anything wrong with tea parties).My daughter, who is the target audience for this book,absolutely loves it, and I think it's pretty great if I just ignore the unnecessary implications about the value of girls in general.

Have to be totally honest, I bought this book because of world book day and that my daughters name is Violet. She is not even 2yrs so the book will probably be more suited to her when she is older, definitely not right now. Looks like good illustrations.

I enjoyed it, the wee one enjoyed it (torn between “she’s got my name and a cool airplane!” And “why does she have my name, that’s MINE!” :D), but could do with a localised UK version as a lot of the writing is very American.

This is one of my favourite children's books ever. It's creatively original, stunningly illustrated and sends a can-do message to potential little engineers, aviators, inventors, entrepreneurs or scientists. Violet has hero qualities, giving your little listener someone to look up to, and a good practical work ethic, inspiring them to try things themselves. The unwritten message is twofold. Firstly it is one of empowering oneself and succeeding, but it also carries a message about priorities and rewards. Such a great book, we found it expensive but we treasure it.

This is such a fun book. We've read it loads and been inspired to create our own flying machines. We also came back and brought two more copies for friends who turned 4.

Lovely illustrations, bought for my daughter with same name (4 years old) but the story was a little bit long for her. I’m sure when we get it out again in a little while she’ll enjoy it more