DISPLAY: Get Carried Away with Reading

Vernon the toad takes the silent Bird on a journey in hopes of finding Bird's home.

Because You Are My Teacher
By: Sherry North

In illustrations and verse, lists some of the places a teacher would take her students if she had the means, from a hot-air balloon trip over China's Great Wall to an airboat ride in the Everglades to observe alligators.

Up and Away!: How Two Brothers Invented the Hot Air Balloon
By: Jason Henry

"Back in 1782, in Annonay, France, lived Joseph Montgolfier, a dreamer and an inventor who was curious about how everything worked. When one day a gust of wind blew his papers into the fireplace, he noticed that something lifted the pages into the air--and he realized that heat could make things rise. With the help of his brother Étienne, he began to experiment ... and created the world's first flying machine, sparking the birth of flight. This beautifully illustrated picture book tells the story of how his hot-air balloon came to be, King Louis XVI's visit to see it fly, and the three animals--a rooster, a duck, and a sheep--who became its very first passengers"--Jacket.

A Voyage in the Clouds : The (Mostly) True Story of the First International Flight by Balloon in 1785
By: Matthew Olshan

Dr. John Jeffries and his pilot, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, each want to be the first man to fly from one country to another, across the English Channel. There's only one problem: they can't stand each other! Inspired by the true story of the first international flight.

Hot- Air Henry
By: Mary Calhoun

A sassy Siamese cat stows away on a hot air balloon and ends up taking a fur-raising flight across the mountains.

The Secret Circus
By: Johanna Wright

Mice carefully dress for an evening out, journey across Paris in a hot air balloon, and finally arrive at a secret place to see the circus.

The Hot Air Balloon Book : Build and Launch Kongming Lanterns, Solar Tetroons, and More
By: Clive Catterall

Author and inventor Clive Catterall provides illustrated, step-by-step instructions for building eight different homemade models of hot air balloons, as well as the science and history behind them.

The Amazing Air Balloon
By: Jean Van Leeuwen

In this story based on true events, a thirteen-year-old apprentice takes the first manned hot air balloon flight in America and gains new insight into life's possibilities.

Comments

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Review: Fowl Play

Fowl Play By Kristin O'Donnell Tubb New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2024. Fiction 277 pages. Still reeling from her beloved uncle's death, Chloe Alvarez is comforted and confused when at his last will and testament reading, Uncle Will gifts her his African Grey parrot, Charlie. Charlie has a robust vocabulary and loves to make Alexa requests for her favorite songs, but when she starts saying things like, "homicide," and "cyanide," Chloe becomes convinced that Uncle Will may have met his demise by murder instead of a genetic disease, as was previously thought. Ultimately, bringing in her brother, Grammy, and Uncle Frank (and of course Charlie,) Chloe's ragtag and adoring family support her search for answers ---going on stakeouts, engaging in fast pursuits, and searching for clues. But as the suspects stack up and the mystery grows, Chole will learn that the process of death and grieving is complicated, and in the end her Uncle Will's words that, ...

Five Faves: Picture Books About Wolves

There are a lot of great picture books that have wolves in them. Wolves are beautiful, strong creatures that can also represent scary things (like in the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood). Here are five great new-ish picture books that feature wolves, for those kids who love to howl at the moon. Full Moon Pups Written by Liz Garton Scanlon Illustrated by Chuck Groenink New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2023. Picture Book. This is a beautifully illustrated story about a pack of new wolf pups and how they grow over the course of one moon’s cycle, from full moon to new moon and back again. Readers will see how the new pups don’t open their eyes for days, how they start to explore the world around them, and how the older members of the pack take care of them. The book also includes information about the phases of the moon at the end. Little Good Wolf By Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel Boston: Clarion Books, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publi...

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