According a former Virginia slave, the Wright Brothers weren’t the first to succeed in flying. In vivid detail adapted from authentic nineteenth century slave narratives, Josiah Brantley describes a harrowing, inspirational journey high above trees, roads and rivers, over the Allegheny Mountains, north to freedom. Blending fiction and history, science and fantasy, On the Wings of the Wind is a whimsical, high-spirited adventure through the darkest corners of our American past, a celebration of ingenuity, perseverance and courage in the face of the most brutal oppression, a glorious triumph of the human spirit.