Whistled Like a Bird: The Untold Story of Dorothy Putnam, George Putnam, and Amelia Earhart

by Sally Putnam Chapman, Stephanie Mansfield (Contributor)

In this extraordinary, true story about an independent woman, a world-famous aviator, and the powerful man who loved them both, Sally Putnam Chapman, the granddaughter of Dorothy Binney Putnam and George Putnam, recounts a treasure trove of memories, spanning the years 1907 to 1961, culled from her grandmother's diaries. of photos.

Genres: Biography, Aviation, Book Club

268 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1997

Reviews

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My grandma wrote this book! Learned so much about my family history through reading this.

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to say that I didn't actually finish it. We read it for our book club, and I think we were all expecting it to have more about Amelia Earhart. While it is obvious that the author loved her grandmother and wanted to pay tribute to her memory with this book, I personally could not connect with Dorothy. In fact, toward the middle of the book, I got increasingly annoyed with her lamentations and her life as a sad, unfulfilled little rich girl whose travels and social life seemed more important than her family. I don't think she didn't love her family or her sons, but it just didn't seem she tried to invest in them as much as she should. Anyway, by the middle of the book, I gave up on it; I wasn't even interested enough in the Amelia Earhart side of it to read through the parts of her disappearance. Oh, well.

[Gary Santos · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is at its best when the trio (Dorothy, George, Amelia) are studied. The psychological relationship between the three is fascinating. I would give it 5 stars for this subject. However, when the book diverts to Dorothy alone, it becomes anticlimactic.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

A few nice moments, but not a book I would recommend. It is very detailed where it doesn't need to be, except to satisfy the author's devotion to her grandmother. The many included diary entries of Dorothy Putnam, details about parties and yacht clubs and elbow-rubbing with social elites, simply didn't interest me all that much. However, one transcribed entry, my favorite part of the book, is a list of 27 "things I love and really care about." Things like "Yellow; all shades from pale cream to burn orange" and "Smell of pine needles in the sun." I'd like to make such a list of my own.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just took this book out of the library. The author was one of those interviewed for the PBS Special on Amelia Earhart. She stated that Amelia was responsible for the breakup of her grandparents (Dorothy and George Putnam). Interestingly, Dorothy divorced George and remarried well before George and Amelia married. So I'm interested in reading more of what she has written about her grandparents and Amelia Earhart.

By the way, July 2, 2007 was the 70th Anniversary of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart somewhere near the Howland Islands in the South Pacific. Later this year, the 100th Anniversary of Amelia Earhart's birth will occur.

Having finished this book, I can state that it would be of interest only to those who've already achieved some level of familiarity with Amelia and her husband George Putnam. This book mainly focuses on the life of Dorothy Binney Putnam, George's 1st wife.

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Our Community Read this year is The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin has me reading about the early women in aviation. A dear older woman put this book in my hands. It was a good story written by the granddaughter of Dorothy and George Putnam who had access to historical documents and Dorothy’s diaries and journals and the family stories. I particularly like the descriptions of the houses built and lived in by these lovers of the great outdoors. The fancy fonts for the Grandmothers journal entries made them almost unreadable.

[Jerri Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of this book was great, I learned who discovered Crayola crayons and learned alot of Amelia Earhart, but learned alot about women back in those days, and the things that have changed and some of the things that have not change, as our insecurities and self doubt...for us women it has been around alooooong time, but read the resilience in an overcomer.

[Lee Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stuff...and it certainly gives you a different view of Amelia Earhart!

[Mary Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite an interesting story.