The Great Hot Air Balloon Adventure

In a mild fantasy, two friends are whisked away on a magical nighttime journey. Night after night, Jessica and Tom peer from their neighboring houses at a hot-air balloon as it soars overhead. One night, the balloon instead lands in Jessica’s garden; it’s piloted by the dapperly dressed Mr. Rabbit, who invites Jessica and Tom on an “expedition.” After bouncing around “on a cloud that looked like giant cotton wool” and enjoying mugs of hot chocolate, the passengers visit Mr. Owl in his tree, delivering the bird his own steaming mug, and return home to their beds. Payne’s smudgy-edged artwork features big-eyed, slightly retro-looking characters and inviting backdrops of a densely starry night sky. First-time author Holmes’s story reads like the type of meandering tale that a parent might recount to a child at bedtime, though the experience is let down by some oddly constructed sentences (“ ‘Time to get you home adventurers’, Mr Rabbit pulled on the cord and the balloon once again set sail”) and a dense cursive font that can be hard to read. Ages 3–5. (BookLife)