Featured books

Featured Websites

.: Reader Views Kids

Reader Views Kids provides book reviews, by kids, for kids.

.: Inside Scoop Live

Inside Scoop Live provides live author interviews.

.: Authors Access

Authors Access provides interviews with experts in the publishing industry

.: Midwest Book Review

Post-publication reviews

.: Reader Views

Pre-publication and post-publication book reviews and author publicity

.: Pantheon Design

Professional website design

reviews

My Father Was a Crop Duster

Bert L. Atwood
AAAA Publishing (2008)
ISBN 9780979928727
Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (6/08)

“My Father Was a Crop Duster” takes a look at the history of the Atwood Crop Dusters in California.  In 1933, Leila Atwood was a school principal but lost her job because she was married.  The reasoning behind this lay off was that jobs were scarce and Leila could rely on her husband to support her.  Therefore, it was determined that her position should go to a single person who did not have anyone else to rely on for income.  Her husband Homer “Bud” Atwood had run an auto repair business but it went bankrupt and this led him to take employment with a small crop dusting company as a pilot.  From here, Atwood Crop Dusters came to fruition and by the 1950s it was one of the largest crop dusting companies in the world and remained a key player in the industry until the 1970s.

The first section of the book focuses mainly on Bud and Leila Atwood and the history behind the business.  Stories are told of certain flight mishaps, hunting adventures and boating on Clear Lake.  There are numerous photographs, newspaper clippings and other documents that are very beneficial in conveying the stories to the reader.    

The second section of the book is labeled as “Cameos” and contains biographies of people who were associated with the Atwood Crop Dusters business.  Their histories, recollections, and stories are told.  There are also photographs and updates on their family life. 

One of my favorite parts of the book was “Only an Eighth Grade Education.” Bud had graduated from Junior High in Kansas in 1919.  However, his family then moved to Modesto, California and he left High School to go to work to help provide income to his family.  Therefore, he basically only had an eight-grade education.  At the end of the book there is a copy of a “Kansas Eighth Grade Exam” from 1895, which is pretty difficult.  I was unsure of some of the questions and I have a Bachelor’s Degree.  Back in that era an 8th grade education was a lot different than today.  For instance, in the section of the test entitled “Orthography,” some of the tasks are to “Give four substitutes for the caret ‘u’.” and to define and give examples of “Trigraph, sybvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, and linguals.”

Most of the stories are interesting but the book does get to be a little repetitive and somewhat too much once we get to the second section with the brief couple of page biographies on all people associated with Atwood Crop Dusters.  I suppose for the former employees themselves this would be a nice keepsake to have but for the average reader all of the profiles can be a little overwhelming.  Overall, despite this flaw, I did enjoy this book and through photos and recollections the author does a great job of painting a picture of the history of the Atwood family and the Atwood Crop Dusters business.  

.: Blog