bilbopooh's Full Review: Margret Rey - Curious George and the Hot Air Ballo...
I have always thought that a hot air balloon would be a wonderful way to travel. I've never been in one, and given my tendency toward motion sickness and general wimpiness, I might find I felt differently if I actually did step into that basket and take to the sky. Still, it's nice to daydream!
In Curious George and the Hot Air Balloon, written and illustrated in the style of Margret and H. A. Rey, mischievous monkey George takes it one step further. He is understandably curious about the hot air balloons he sees while on vacation with the Man in the Yellow Hat. They're so splashy and colorful, and what fun to be able to see the world from the sky! But when his admiration accidentally lands him in a departing balloon, he's not so sure he likes the idea of hot air balloon flight anymore. How will he ever manage to get down when he doesn't have any idea of how to operate the balloon?
There's a certain educational element to this book, as the vacation takes place at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Of course, readers are seeing a simplified version of the impressive monument, but they can at least get a general idea of what it looks like. The book also points out that the four presidents carved into the mountain are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
The book doesn't really get into the mechanics of hot air balloon flight but does indicate that there is a certain amount of steering involved, which is something that George does not know how to do. It's not the only method of air travel the book mentions; helicopters also appear as a way for tourists to get especially close to the presidents' faces. That's not the aim of the balloonists, but since George doesn't have much control over where he goes, he gets a very unusual birds'-eye view not many visitors can claim.
This is one of the better new Curious George books I have read. It's not as involved as some of the older ones, but it's exciting, and the illustrations and story seem truer to the Reys' original vision. I also like the fact that the Man in the Yellow Hat doesn't do anything woefully neglectful this time around, as he has a tendency to do in this series, especially in books not actually written and illustrated by the Reys.
Usually, the phrase "flying monkey" conjures images of creepy creatures out to get a poor innocent girl whose only hope of returning home seems to be via a hot air balloon. In this case, there's nothing vicious about the "flying" monkey, and his balloon may not get him home, but it's bound to ensure a vacation he won't ever forget!
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