Fly Boy

 by Eric Walters

What the Book Is About

Robbie McWilliams is seventeen and desperate to fly. His dad was a Spitfire pilot who got shot down and is now a prisoner of war, and Robbie wants to follow in his footsteps. The problem is his mom would never let him enlist, so he lies about who he is, uses his older brother's identity, and joins the Royal Canadian Air Force behind her back.

Robbie trains in Brandon, Manitoba, and does well enough to make it through. But instead of becoming a pilot like his dad, he's assigned as a navigator on a Lancaster bomber. He's shipped off to England and starts flying real bombing missions over German territory. Then, on one mission, his Lancaster gets hit, the pilot and several of the crew are wounded, and it's suddenly up to Robbie, who's never actually flown a plane, to get the crew home alive.

Who This Book Is For

I'd say this one's for readers 11 and up (Indigo actually lists it as 9-12), especially if you're into WWII history, planes, or stories about the air force. You don't need to know anything about Lancasters going in; the book teaches you as it goes.

What I Thought

My favourite part was when Robbie officially meets his Lancaster crew for the first time, and he's the one nursing a massive hangover, because the night before he'd ended up drinking with them after a bar fight without even realizing they were about to become his crew. It was such a funny way to introduce them, and it made them feel like real people instead of just "the soldiers." I laughed a lot at that part.

Past that, though, the book is really good at making you feel what it must have actually been like to fly a Lancaster during the war: cramped, loud, terrifying, and a lot of the time totally exhausting. I also really loved that it's a Canadian story: a kid from Toronto crossing the ocean to fight. I'm currently researching a real RCAF pilot who enlisted just five days after his 18th birthday, and reading about Robbie's training in Canada before he shipped overseas made my own research feel a lot more real, like I could actually picture what that training would have been like for him too.

One thing I did want more of was the ending. Some parts of the story felt a bit rushed, especially after the crew makes it back. I wanted more detail about what happened to everyone before the book wrapped up. It's possible Walters did that on purpose, to keep the pace fast, but I would have liked to sit in that part of the story a bit longer.

I also would have liked to know more about where Eric Walters got the idea for this book: whether it's based on one real airman's story, or if he pulled together bits and pieces from several veterans' accounts to build Robbie's story. Either way, it clearly comes from real research. The book even has a foreword from an actual WWII airman, which makes it feel very grounded in what really happened, even though Robbie himself is fictional.

Final Thoughts

I'd give Fly Boy 4.5 out of 5 stars. It's fast-paced, funny in places, tense in others, and it's a great read for anyone who wants to understand what young Canadian airmen went through in WWII.

Book Review by a Junior Company Reader, age 12