This book was sent to me by the author directly. It's such fun to read a book by someone you know. The book is geared toward middle-grade readers, and it's a suspenseful novel.
What I liked about the book:
- Such details, about the characters, hot air balloon facts, and amazing descriptive language.
- Reading the story, made me feel as if I was experiencing being trapped in the balloon flying adrift and lost over the earth. It's believable.
- The characters came to life (and there are moments where you do not like their selfishness and attitude, but it was very relatable and true to their ages/development.)
- One of the reasons the characters came alive was the author did such a good job sharing their metacognition- or the thinking going on in their heads- which made them likable and awful depending on the moment, but this also brought their spiritual lives out and helped the reader process how the Lord Our God is with those who believe in any situation. Jenny's thinking about scripture and God was authentic and realistic.
- The back story is integrated across the timeline of the two lost children floating out away from
What I wonder about the book:
- could you really float as high up as the kids did and survive? I haven't researched it for myself.
- will this become a series of books? You get to know the characters well and it would be interesting to find them again.
Teaching Connections:
- Research on the atmosphere, oxygen level, temperature, etc. as well as research as to what speed the balloon must have flown and what level of wind you would need to travel up and across the way the kids did. Has this type of accident happened? if so when, where? So many possibilities and so many research or science experiment-type questions to pursue.
- This book would be an excellent writing model for style and using descriptive language in your writing.
Thankful to read a copy of this book and review it, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
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