Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride

Priceman, M. (2005). Hot air: the (mostly) true story of the first hot-air balloon ride. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Caldecott Honor Book, 2006  

If the plot does not fit the traditional plot line, what plot line does the book illustrate?  Write a 5-6 sentence description of the book:

This “mostly true” story is set on September 19, 1783 at the palace of Versailles France as crowds stand waiting for amateur inventors Joseph and Entienne Montgolfier to test their exciting new form of transportation – the hot-air balloon.  This story does not follow a traditional plot line in that after the author introduces what the inventors are doing, she switches to tell the story of the duck, sheep, and rooster who are the hot-air balloon’s first passengers, strictly through illustrations and a little animal talk.  The animals experience a lot during their journey across the city, from being shot at with arrows, to being swarmed by birds, to almost falling out of the basket, to the basket getting filled with water.  At the end, the balloon lands in the woods of Vaucresson, and the animals are safe and sound.  It is revealed that the flight really did happen with the animal passengers, but that the details of the flight may or may not be true as “the author 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” (Priceman, 2005).

Picture books only (Was this a well illustrated book? Describe how it was or was not well-illustrated in 3 sentences.):  Priceman is also the illustrator of this story, and she does a brilliant job of portraying the possibly true experiences of the animals on board that first hot-air balloon flight.  The reader can easily imagine how the animals feel just from the comical expressions she puts on their faces.  The illustrations are vibrant, colorful and funny and will appeal to children of any age.