McCurdy and the Silver Dart

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Arthur McCurdy, editor of the Cape Breton Island Reporter, was having
trouble with an ornery new gadget called the telephone. The man who came
to fix it was Alexander Graham Bell. McCurdy went to work for Bell as
his secretary. McCurdy’s son, Douglas, was raised in the Scottish
inventor’s mansion near Baddeck. Douglas grew up surrounded by some of
the brightest inventors of the era. Bell devoted the last two decades of
his life to perfecting a heavier-than-air flying machine. Young Douglas
McCurdy’s work with Bell was the beginning of his career as an
aviation engineer and pilot.

This book traces Douglas’s life from his early days as a mischievous
boy who nearly blew up the Bell mansion (and himself with it), through
his career as Canada’s first great aviation pioneer, to his final
years as Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. Like that of many Canadian
inventors, McCurdy’s remarkable career has been mostly ignored by
modern historians. Besides being the first person to fly an airplane in
Canada, McCurdy invented the aileron and set many aviation records.

Les Harding does a fine job chronicling McCurdy’s life. In addition
to his keen sense of narrative, Harding’s two strongest writing tools
are his dry humor and his ability to explain complex technical theories
in layperson’s terms. This book will be enjoyed by history buffs,
young and old. Highly recommended.