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Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride (Caldecott Honor Book)
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About Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story Of The First
Product Description The first "manned" hot-air balloon is about to take off! But what are those noises coming from the basket? Based on the (POSSIBLY) true report of a day in 1783, this si the story of (PERHAPS) the bravest collection of flyers the world has ever seen, as (SORT OF) told to Marjorie Priceman. From School Library Journal PreSchool-Grade 3-Inventive illustrations depict the true story of the duck, sheep, and rooster that were "ballooning's first brave passengers" when the Montgolfiers tested their hot-air balloon in 1783. The first three spreads set the stage with lively conversational descriptions of the scene before the balloon takes off. A dramatic shift on the fourth page turn reveals the befuddled animal passengers as they ascend. Most of the remaining text is wordless, with occasional "quacks," "baas," and "cock-a-doodle-doos." With vibrant colors and varied use of panels, full-page illustrations, and spreads, Priceman paces the tale perfectly. An early four-panel scene showing the balloon at various heights while the animals try to figure out what's going on is priceless. So is the spread in which all three become attached to windblown laundry. The voyagers' progress is easy to follow, and events along the way are delightfully rendered. A time line on the endpapers fills in some of the historical data, but this "(mostly) true" version (which the author "heard…from a duck, who heard it from a sheep, who heard it from a rooster a long, long time ago") is just the way it should have happened. Sarah Wilson's Three in a Balloon (Scholastic, 1990; o.p.) covers the same event nicely, but this intriguing historical episode stands up to varied presentations, as Priceman's dynamic visual storytelling ably demonstrates. -Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library, OR Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist K-Gr. 3. Combining fact and fancy, -Priceman tells the story of the successful 1783 liftoff of a hot-air balloon, invented by the Montgolfier brothers, a flight made even more special because of its passengers: a duck, a sheep, and a rooster. Priceman sets the scene in several picture-text spreads, then segues into a nearly wordless visual narrative of the animals' comedic encounters with a clothesline, a boy with bow and arrow, a flock of birds, and more, capturing everything in buoyant artwork full of swirls and clever details (the balloon moves past animal-shaped clouds). The history, highlighted in an illustrated time line at the end of the book, takes a backseat to the humorous antics of the animals. As for the truth? Priceman claims she "heard this part of the story from a duck, who heard it from a sheep, who heard it from a rooster a long, long time ago." This differs considerably from Anik McGrory's Mouton's Impossible Dream (2000); both books employ aerial perspectives and focus on the animals, but Priceman's whimsical art is much livelier. Julie Cummins Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review "llustrations are chock-a-block with goofy shenanigans that demand several viewings." -- The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books "A tale that's sure to soar with young readers." -- Publishers Weekly "Priceman's wonderful, vivacious black ink and watercolor paintings... add motion and buoyancy to an already soaring tale of a historic hot-air balloon ride." -- Kirkus Reviews About the Author Marjorie Priceman, illustrator of many acclaimed picture books, has won Caldecott Honors for her illustrations in Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin! by Lloyd Moss and Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the Frist Hot-Air Balloon Ride, which she also wrote. She lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
