Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 06/01/2018 Henry details the activities of two brothers, Joseph-Michael and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, inventors of the hot-air balloon. Describing Joseph as dreamy, the author imagines that he noticed the lifting properties of hot air while gazing into a fireplace, inspiring the balloon that his practical brother Étienne helped him to build. Henry describes their early attempts (involving a small taffeta box held over a flame), larger trials (entailing a cloth bag suspended over an open fire), and a public demonstration for King Louis XVI of France that carried aloft a rooster, a duck, and a sheep. Henry’s lush, digital artwork depicts the splendors of eighteenth-­century France, particularly those found in the clothing, architecture, and household furnishings. The style is mostly realistic, with somewhat exaggerated facial features for the three animals, which appear in most spreads, following the story’s every action. Concluded with an author’s note, further reading, and an extensive time line of the history of flight (up to the present), this makes a good addition to units on aviation and inventors. - Copyright 2018 Booklist.