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This book continued Calvinistic and Puritan themes from the very first children’s literature in the U.S.A. Tendencies to preach and teach abound. The book literally told a child how to “fly on the beam,” how to pull out of spins, how to beach a seaplane, what to do about icing and constant speed propellers, what to expect in training. This was done while maintaining the element of adventure. There were the requisite numbers of crashes, saboteurs, and rescues, including the relief of Mississippi River flood victims in Pascagoula. These events led up to the final illustration of a clipper flying over an American flag. Bob Clexton did not really sense the full power and grandeur of American air power until he flew a flying boat. Here, he said, “…was POWER! These were mighty wings of the U.S.A.!” (400) and his training was “the solid foundation on which American leadership in the air is built” (420).
Other clipper books featured youth who were simply travelers rather than member of the crew. In Timmy Rides the China Clipper, Timmy Blake rode the clipper from San Francisco to Hong Kong after clipper service had been extended to China. He planned to spend Christmas with his Aunt Kate and Uncle George. The activities Timmy enjoyed at the different island bases came right out of the Pan Am public relations brochures. The Flight of the Silver Bird by Ruth and Latrobe Carroll recounted nearly the same material, only this flight featured younger children attached to their security doll and pet turtle. Timmy, however, was older than the characters in Silver Bird, so his story was more in the vein of the popular Frank Merriwell stories of the time that combined learning and morality with the manliness of athletics to tap, as Russel Nye puts it, “the strenuous life…the emergent cult of mass sport” (73). The closer the war, the more importance physical fitness became. Instead of carrying Mr. Pokey, the pet turtle, Timmy can ride giant ocean turtles at Midway. He can go snorkeling and spearfishing at Wake and see the hydroponic greenhouse where Pan Am grows its tomatoes on the soilless island. It’s clear that flying the clipper was seen as a child’s dream, and the interest level must have been high. Timmy Rides the China Clipper first appeared in 1939. In 1947 it was already in its fifth printing. This was more than a year after Pan Am had retired its last war-weary flying boat, yet the romance of the clipper continued after the flying boat had been replaced and after comic books began to shift children’s literary tastes. This enduring interest extended to non-fiction children’s books. Picture Map Geography of the Pacific Islands by Vernon Quinn featured a clipper drawing in 1945, at a time when clipper routes had been nearly taken over by land-based airplanes. Nevertheless, in its sixth printing in 1959 the book was still using the clipper—fifteen years after the clippers had disappeared.
Many fiction and non-fiction clipper books took on a ritualistic quality in terms of subject selection. Children always met “coffee colored” Chamorros and their water buffalos in the Philippines. Island peoples were grateful for the American influence. This conforms to the idea of America as the “Great White Father” discussed by J. Frederick MacDonald in “’The Foreigner’ in Juvenile Fiction” (537). Either an American dewing machine in their thatched hut was their pride and joy, or they preferred American sports such as baseball over their native cockfighting. At Wake visitors must find Japanese fishing floats and shells. At Midway they will laugh at the Gooney Birds. At Hawaii they will surf. And everyone will learn about crossing the International Date Line. Rituals were partially derived from authors’ using notes from the same published travel diaries and Pan Am travel descriptions.
Because of the non-fiction interest in aviation in the 1930s and 1940s, the clipper stole the show in these books. Travel by Air by Dorothy Judd Sickels in 1940 illustrated the M-130 China Clipper on both covers, complete with boys and girls, luggage, and pet dog with baggage ticket patiently waiting for the flying boat to land. Unfortunately this book made it appear to children that the flying boat could land on a runway instead of water. Inside, the book featured other models of the clippers, including a rare picture of an advanced Martin 156 clipper.
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