Maddie, Maddie, Flying High

Young adult, contemporary.

Maddie adores her father and wants to follow in his footsteps as a pilot, so she is excited when her parents pay for flying lessons for her seventeenth birthday. Later, she finds out that her father wanted to give her an extra special present in case he didn’t live through his newly diagnosed cancer and the treatments he has to endure. To complicate matters, the boy Maddie has been interested in is finally paying attention to her, but Maddie is more intrigued with her new flight instructor, while her friends feel she is neglecting them. The guilt Maddie feels about enjoying her flying lessons and boys while her father is suffering and her friends are distancing themselves just when she needs them causes her to do things that are foolish and sometimes heart-breakingly funny.