Flight of Passage

June 2, 1997
"It was the best summer of our lives and there would never be another one like it," Buck recalls in this gripping adventure story from June 1966. That was when, at age 15, he and his 17-year-old brother, Kern, flew from New Jersey to California and back in a Piper Cub that they had painstakingly restored, becoming the youngest aviators to fly coast to coast. Freelance writer Buck successfully combines details of this flight with a chronicle of the family interaction that inspired the trip. The eldest sons of magazine publisher Tom Buck, father of 11 children and a barnstorming pilot whose flying days ended when he lost a leg in a 1946 plane accident, Rink and Kern were raised to fly. This coming-of-age memoir, replete with colorful anecdotes about open-cockpit planes and their pilots, is a pleasure to read. Photos. BOMC, QPB and Reader's Digest Condensed Books selections; audio rights to BDD Audio.

February 1, 1997
A journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Buck here relates the record-setting cross-country flight he and his brother made in 1966 as teenagers.

Starred review from April 15, 1997
In July_ 1966, Rinker Buck navigated while Kern Buck piloted the brothers from New York to San Diego in a standard Piper Cub (no lights, no radio, no heat) that they had painstakingly restored to near-mint condition. Kern was 17, Rinker 15, and their father, '30s aerial barnstormer turned journalist Tom Buck, 50 and starting to really feel the toll of a relentlessly active life. In the first paragraph of his colorful, exhilarating, heart-stirring account of the adventure, Rinker reveals the importance of that conjunction of ages: "What we were really doing was proving ourselves to my father." Tom Buck taught his eldest sons to fly and expected them to excel; they obviously did, which was particularly gratifying to Tom in the case of Kern, a naturally reticent, "geeky" kid. But Tom had a hard time granting his sons independence. He badgered them during their nightly calls home (Kern soon delegated calling duties entirely to Rinker, who stood up to Tom better). Using his media connections, Tom drummed up journalistic interest in the flight; the boys initially found this annoying, although Kern then got into it. At the end of their feat, the brothers were firmly reconciled to their father and to one another (Rinker had long been embarrassed by his nerdy older brother, and Kern had been demoralized by Rinker's popularity and athleticism). The journeys of miles and spirits that led to these resolutions Rinker recounts with such verve and love that "Flight of Passage" bids fair to become a coming-of-age classic. ((Reviewed April 15, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)