To Fly Among the Stars: The Hidden Story of the Fight for Women Astronauts

A great non-fiction story about how women became astronauts in outer space. It was set after World War II (between 1940 and 1960) in the United States.

It starts with seven male pilots training to become astronauts. American pilots are trying go to space first before the Soviets, so NASA started training male pilots to see who could become astronauts in an effort to beat the Soviets to space. There were thirteen women pilots who were mad that NASA would not take women pilots. NASA thought women pilots wouldn’t be able to last in space for several reasons. One is that they thought women had children to take care of. These women wanted to prove that they can go into space because they were really good and better than most men so they started training in secret. In their secret training, they took the same test that the NASA pilots took (for example strength, and how much oxygen their lungs could hold). The book was well written and it made me feel as if I was actually there during the time of the story. I learned women were discriminated against even though they were some of the best pilots. The book really is about gender discrimination and sexism.

[There are some parts in the book that talk about women and some steps in puberty, so I would recommend this book for tweens or kids over age ten.