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If You Like... Hot Air Balloons

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Hot air balloons have always seemed like a fascinating and fun way to travel. Amazing aerial views, like those from an airplane window, mix with the slower pace of a train ride to let you take in the rolling hills and wispy clouds. If you're also interested in reading stories about floating among the clouds, try these books!

By Barbara O'Connor
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2021. Fiction. 234 pages.

Walter, a boy grieving the loss of his older brother, makes friends with his talkative new neighbor Posey. While the two of them are out catching minnows together in the creek, they meet an injured balloonist who enlists their help in recovering his damaged hot air balloon so that he can win an upcoming hot air balloon race. 

Written by Kristen Fulton
Illustrated by Torben Kuhlmann
San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books LLC, 2020. Informational.

This informational book tells the true story of one family's escape from East Germany over the Berlin Wall using a handmade hot air balloon. 

By Matt Phelan
New York: Greenwillow Books, 2022. Fiction. 221 pages.

Inspired by the first hot air balloon flight (which involved a sheep, and rooster, and a duck) this historical fiction adventure sees the titular animals acting as spies to aid château caretaker Emile in heroically defending the drawings and inventions of Benjamin Franklin. The animals adventure across 18th-century France to stop a plot to crown an evil count the King of America.

Written by Sue Ganz-Schmitt
Illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
New York: Calkins Creek, 2024. Biography. 

Mary Myers was fascinated by hot air balloons, and along with her husband, she began designing and manufacturing her own hot air balloons that the couple then used to research weather conditions and set records in balloon flights.
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