"I imagine wing-walking and reading An Impossible Distance to Fall feel a great deal the same: heart-stopping, thrill-seeking and addictive. A book to be re-read over, and over, and over again." âKatherine Locke, award-winning author of The Girl with the Red Balloon
Here is a story about fallingâfalling from grace, falling in loveâas well as soaring to heights you wouldnât know were possible if you never stepped out into thin air.
Itâs 1930, and Birdie Williamâs life has crashed along with the stock market. Her fatherâs bank has failed, and worse, heâs disappeared along with his Jenny biplane.
When Birdie sees a leaflet for a barnstorming circus with a picture of Dadâs plane on it, she goes to Coney Island in search of answers.
The barnstorming circus has lady pilots, daredevil stuntmen, fire-spinners, and wing walkers, and Birdie is instantly enchantedâespecially with a girl pilot named June. Birdie doesnât find her father, but after stumbling across clues that suggest heâs gone to Chicago, she figures sheâll hitch a ride with the traveling circus doing what she does best: putting on a convincing act and insisting on being star of the show.
But the overconfidence that made her belle of the ball during her enchanted youth turns out to be far too reckless without the safety net of her charmed childhood, and a couple of impulsive missteps sends her and her newfound community spinning into freefall.