In 1916, ``Ruth Law tried to fly from Chicago to New York City in one day. It had never been done before.'' She almost made it, in a tiny open plane carrying 53 gallons of gas--so much that its lights had to come off to save weight. Bundled against the frigid weather, Law took off at dawn and had made a record with a 590-mile flight by the time she landed to refuel. A second hop got her past Binghamton, but she had to stop when it got dark; the next day she landed in N.Y.C., hailed as a heroine. In his first children's book, Brown records these events in an easy, concise style spiced with amusing details--Law took along a skirt but didn't wear it in the air: ``good sense defeated fashion.'' His sketchy pen and watercolor illustrations lighten the proceedings with caricatures of spectators while nicely conveying the period, the vast sky, and Law's remarkably frail-looking craft. A likable story, well worth telling. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 4-9)
