What do you think?
Rate this book
A Girl Can Dream
Vintage Young Adult Literature
- GenresYoung AdultFiction
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1948
7 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
Betty Cavanna
100 books61 followersAmerican juvenile author (full name: Elizabeth Allen) Betty Cavanna suffered from a crippling disease, infantile paralysis, as a child, which she eventually overcame with treatment and exercise. During her convalescence, attentive adults read to her until she was old enough to read to herself, beginning a long love affair with books.
Cavanna majored in journalism at the New Jersey College for Women in New Brunswick, from where she received the Bachelor of Letters degree in 1929. She also took art classes in New York and Philadelphia. Cavanna's first job was as a reporter for the Bayonne Times. In 1931 she joined the staff of the Westminster Press in Philadelphia and over the next ten years served as advertising manager and art director. She also wrote and sold material to Methodist and Baptist publishing firms. In 1940 she married Edward Talman Headley, with whom she had a son. They moved to Philadelphia. After her husband's death, she married George Russell Harrison, a university dean of science, as well as nonfiction writer, in 1957. He died in 1979.
Cavanna became a full-time writer in 1941. Since then she has written more than seventy books under the name of Betty Cavanna as well as two pseudonyms: Betsy Allen, under which she wrote the "Connie Blair Mystery" series, and Elizabeth Headley, under which she wrote several books, including the Diane stories. As Betty Cavanna she also published the nonfiction "Around the World Today" about young people living in various countries.
Cavanna's juvenile fiction, about the difficulties of adolescenc, appealed to generations of teenage girls. Her characters confronted loneliness, sibling rivalries, divorce, and tense mother-daughter relationships. Her books, although characterized as pleasant, conventional, and stereotyped, have been extremely popular and recommended by critics for their attention to subjects which have reflected girls' interests. Going on Sixteen and Secret Passage were Spring Book Festival honor books in 1946 and 1947.
In the 1970s Cavanna turned to writing mysteries, which she termed "escape fiction," because she said she felt out of sync with the problems of modern teenagers. Two of her books have been runners-up for the Edgar Allan Poe Award: Spice Island Mystery in 1970 and the Ghost of Ballyhooly in 1972.
She died in France (2001).
Cavanna majored in journalism at the New Jersey College for Women in New Brunswick, from where she received the Bachelor of Letters degree in 1929. She also took art classes in New York and Philadelphia. Cavanna's first job was as a reporter for the Bayonne Times. In 1931 she joined the staff of the Westminster Press in Philadelphia and over the next ten years served as advertising manager and art director. She also wrote and sold material to Methodist and Baptist publishing firms. In 1940 she married Edward Talman Headley, with whom she had a son. They moved to Philadelphia. After her husband's death, she married George Russell Harrison, a university dean of science, as well as nonfiction writer, in 1957. He died in 1979.
Cavanna became a full-time writer in 1941. Since then she has written more than seventy books under the name of Betty Cavanna as well as two pseudonyms: Betsy Allen, under which she wrote the "Connie Blair Mystery" series, and Elizabeth Headley, under which she wrote several books, including the Diane stories. As Betty Cavanna she also published the nonfiction "Around the World Today" about young people living in various countries.
Cavanna's juvenile fiction, about the difficulties of adolescenc, appealed to generations of teenage girls. Her characters confronted loneliness, sibling rivalries, divorce, and tense mother-daughter relationships. Her books, although characterized as pleasant, conventional, and stereotyped, have been extremely popular and recommended by critics for their attention to subjects which have reflected girls' interests. Going on Sixteen and Secret Passage were Spring Book Festival honor books in 1946 and 1947.
In the 1970s Cavanna turned to writing mysteries, which she termed "escape fiction," because she said she felt out of sync with the problems of modern teenagers. Two of her books have been runners-up for the Edgar Allan Poe Award: Spice Island Mystery in 1970 and the Ghost of Ballyhooly in 1972.
She died in France (2001).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 8, 2015
I'm sure it's dated now, but when I read it as a teenager, I loved it.
February 20, 2012
Rette is a high school girl who idolizes her older brother. He was a pilot in the war. She doesn't feel that she quite fits in at school and is jealous of Elsie the popular girl. A new airport opens up and as an incentive to get young people interested in flying the prize is ten hours of flying lessons. Of course the boys assume that a boy will win but Rette ends up winning. Flying lessons improve her disposition and attitude and all is well.
I did not find Rette to be one of Cavanna's best characters and frankly she irritated me a little. However good on her for not making it a huge deal that Rette wants to fly. So the book is quite progressive in that respect. Plus flying as a vehicle for a coming of age story is more original than a boy or a horse.
It is always amusing to read about the past and see how they think the future will be. Flying private planes did not take over from the car as our means of transport in the future.
I did not find Rette to be one of Cavanna's best characters and frankly she irritated me a little. However good on her for not making it a huge deal that Rette wants to fly. So the book is quite progressive in that respect. Plus flying as a vehicle for a coming of age story is more original than a boy or a horse.
It is always amusing to read about the past and see how they think the future will be. Flying private planes did not take over from the car as our means of transport in the future.
December 17, 2015
Teenage Rette enters an essay contest and wins flying lessons that change her life!
August 28, 2014
This was okay. The flying was interesting and everything but it was kind of sad because Rette really looks up to her older brother and just wants his attention but she never really gets it. Her brother flys. He flew in the war and still does it as a hobby so you'd think he'd be interested when his sister starts taking flying lessons buy nope. He couldn't care less really. Also the love interest in this is kinda lame. In the end he pretty much states that Rette is one of his two girlfriends. Strangely she's fine with that. She says she doesn't mind being second fiddle. Uhh okay, whatever
November 18, 2014
Found this at a garage sale last summer. Memorable not so much for the plot (you want to fly a plane, really? I don't understand), but for the references to My Friend Flicka, Seventeenth Summer and St. Exupery's memoir, plus the marvelous writing style of the times - where phrases like "that's a real feed!" and "put up the dough" invite scolding over slang and not speaking "properly" from the girl's mother. But for all that, I was impressed at how much focus was put on gender equality.
August 23, 2007
Rette wins a competition to get flying lessons and becomes closer friends with cute Jeff, who is mad about flying.
July 1, 2010
This book - likely a 1978 edition I saw referenced on Amazon - was a pivotal book in my coming of age.
September 11, 2011
My copy is titled GIRLS CAN DREAM, TOO.
February 7, 2013
Especially love the relationship rette has with her grandfather
July 31, 2014
My Scholastic paperback copy from the 70s really got me interested in flying. And feminism, too, I suppose.
May 16, 2015
one of my old favourites from my early teens
October 16, 2022
My copy is the original hardcover book not shown here. I'm continuing with my Cavanna marathon, the third one I've read in a row.
Oddly, I liked this story but I didn't like Rette, the heroine of the story, much at all. She's awkward, as Cavanna's protagonists usually are, but she's prickly and jealous and sometimes mean. I really liked the description of learning to fly a Cessna airplane. The book flap says that the author, Betty Cavanna, learned to fly a Cessna. Early flying always interests me. (1948)
In this book the high school that Rette attends holds a writing contest when a new airport opens nearby. The essay subject is "The Dream of Flying". Rette's older brother Tony flew during World War II and Rette would like to also fly. Rette does lots of research and writes a factual essay but is told to write what about flying means to her. She writes a new essay but decides it's too personal. The day the essays are due to be turned in she turns in the wrong essay- the personal one- and wins the flying lessons. She feels that this will make her stand out in her class. During this whole book there is a very nice girl named Elise who is popular and pretty and knows just what to say. Rette hates her because she is the opposite if herself. It's jealousy and it really comes out when Elise's father gives Elisa flying lessons as a graduation gift! Not only that but Elise is a natural and one lesson behind Rette and is doing better. Of course it all gets worked out as it always does in book land.
P.S. In 1948 $5 could buy a half hour of flight time.
Oddly, I liked this story but I didn't like Rette, the heroine of the story, much at all. She's awkward, as Cavanna's protagonists usually are, but she's prickly and jealous and sometimes mean. I really liked the description of learning to fly a Cessna airplane. The book flap says that the author, Betty Cavanna, learned to fly a Cessna. Early flying always interests me. (1948)
In this book the high school that Rette attends holds a writing contest when a new airport opens nearby. The essay subject is "The Dream of Flying". Rette's older brother Tony flew during World War II and Rette would like to also fly. Rette does lots of research and writes a factual essay but is told to write what about flying means to her. She writes a new essay but decides it's too personal. The day the essays are due to be turned in she turns in the wrong essay- the personal one- and wins the flying lessons. She feels that this will make her stand out in her class. During this whole book there is a very nice girl named Elise who is popular and pretty and knows just what to say. Rette hates her because she is the opposite if herself. It's jealousy and it really comes out when Elise's father gives Elisa flying lessons as a graduation gift! Not only that but Elise is a natural and one lesson behind Rette and is doing better. Of course it all gets worked out as it always does in book land.
P.S. In 1948 $5 could buy a half hour of flight time.
March 28, 2023
This book was written in 1947, so it is dated. However, the author perfectly captures how it feels to be a teenager with dreams. In this story, the main character, Rhette, enters an essay contest. The prize is flying lessons, complete with a solo flight. Only three girls enter the contest out of around 70 boys. Rhette wins the contest and finds that she loves to fly. If you can get around the dated parts, the beauty of the story is simply the feelings it evokes.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 17, 2024
A pretty average mid century YA, but with the unusual story of a girl learning to pilot a plane. Rette’s transformation from a sullen girl who doesn’t make an effort at things that are hard for her, like dating and algebra, to a motivated young woman who can put aside petty jealousies and embrace change, is well done, and the fact that her flying instructor is also a woman is an added bonus.
May 28, 2023
It’s always fun to read vintage fiction, especially when it’s a coming of age story about a young girl…and romance isn’t much part of it.
November 24, 2024
New to me, but I liked it a lot.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews