Velva Jean Learns to Fly

July 25, 2011
Niven delivers another tale full of hope, heartbreak, and nostalgia in this sequel to Velva Jean Learns to Drive. Now in her twenties, at the dawn of World War II, heroine Velva Jean Hart leaves her husband and the comfort of her hometown in North Carolina to pursue her life-long dream of singing at the Grand Ole Opry. Once she arrives, she quickly learns that breaking into the music business is breaking her heart, but that doesn't stop our mind-bogglingly positive ingénue from sticking it out and singing the blues every chance she gets. Velva Jean's aspirations soon take a dramatic turn when her brother Johnny Clay introduces her to flying planes. Consumed with becoming a heroic female aviator, Velva Jean joins the WAFS, the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, part of the Army Air Forces, and experiences a wartime life filled with love, despair, and life-threatening adventures. A tasteful blend of comedy, inspiration, and endurance.

Starred review from July 1, 2011
Velva Jean Hart is a heroine with grit, grace, determination, and enough humanity to hook readers with ferocious tenderness, making them want to find and befriend her. In this follow-up to Velva Jean Learns to Drive (2009), the artlessly intrepid protagonist follows her singing dreams to Nashville in her big yellow truck. Reality in the form of the competitive music business and WWII sharply arrests her ambitions, however, leading to an unexpected new horizon when she learns how to fly airplanes. Adventures await her, ranging from bonds between soul sisters to encounters with musical legends to matters of the heart to unconscionable acts of sabotage that threaten everything she holds dear. Velva Jean's growth arc arises from the simple yet elegantly powerful realizations that life was too short to spend it trying to get a man to tell me how he felt about me and that her home was in the sky, where she could soar with ceiling and visibility unlimited. Besides creating a gutsy heroine, who, despite the repressive times, never becomes bitter, Niven's writing shines overall. Cheers to Niven, Velva Jean, and the two further books of her remarkable story to come in 2012 and 2013.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)