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

2006 Caldecott Honor book


Priceman, Marjorie. Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride. Atheneum, 2005.

The illustrations are wonderful and remind me of the Madeline books created by Ludwig Bemelmans. This story is also set in France, which is another similiarity to the Madeline stories. Each coloful illustration looks as if it were painted and then outlined with black. Although I was impressed by the illustrations, I found the story a little hard to follow on the pages with only illustrations and no words.

The story is based at the Palace of Versailles (France) in 1783. It describes how two inventors named Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier, started testing the first hot-air balloon for a crowd of people gathered at the palace. The crowd witnessed a duck, a sheep, and a rooster be the first passengers of the balloon. This historical flight of barnyard animals lasted around 8 minutes and traveled about 2 miles. Parts of the story are based upon factual information and parts are exaggerated to express the feelings that the animals may have had while in the air.

My favorite part of the book was the last two pages which provide a brief history of the hot-air balloons created by the Montgolfiers. Important dates and events are described that relate to the history of hot-air balloons. Each event is also depicted in a small illustration beside the description.

The only part that disappointed me about the book was the fact that the author stopped writing the story after the animals were launched in the balloon. The remaining parts of the story were only told through illustrations and I wasn't really sure what was happening until I read the timeline at the end.

I think students would find the book extremely interesting! They would definitely enjoy learning about how animals were launched in the balloon instead of people. Students might also enjoy trying to decipher how the illustrations are telling the story towards the end.
This story taught me that children's books can describe a historical event using facts, but also with the incorporation of fiction components to spice up the interest of the story for young readers.