JEAN BATTEN'S STORY

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

JEAN BATTEN'S STORY

44 MY LIFE," by JeSn Batten , iVI (Harrap), is a modest and clear account, written by the famous Auckland airwoman, of her flying career adventures. It might perhaps better have been , called "My Life in the Air," for In tlili book Miss Batten has successfully resisted any temptation she may have felt to tell her reader* much about fcer private life and thoughts, and has devoted her space to describing her flights. A very brief introductory pasSage describes her early inclination toward* flying, and then follow the accounts of her grent flights —the first adventure to Australia, the return to England, the crossing of the South Atlantic, and the great solo flight to

Hew Zealand. All these are described in some detail, and with an unaffected modesty that is quite charming. Perhaps in the circumstance® Miss may be forgiven the concluding chapter, "Guest of Honour," in which she relates a few of the honours that followed on her return from her last flight; for ourselves we wished she had stopped at the end of Chapter 20, when her Gull landed on the Croydon tarmac and she stepped out beside Mr. Jordan amid the cheers of the surging crowd who were awaiting her return. This is not a work of literary genius, but Miss Batten may well be congratulated on telling a simple, unaffected story, which deserves to be a popular one. The book, it may be added, is admirably illustrated with photographs, among which may be mentioned one of the author sitting on a French platform next to M. Bleriot, who flew across the Channel for the first time six weeks before Jean was born.