ABOUT THE BOOK

When a girl in a homemade hot air balloon falls out of the sky in rural Gilbertine, there are questions: Who is this girl, where exactly did she come from, why won’t she talk, and what has she risked to live in a country that does not seem to want her? And what can Sophie, Wyatt, and K—three misfit best friends with complex and harrowing stories of their own—do to help the girl who can’t trust those who want to help her? What should they do? As seen through the eyes of 14-year-old Sophie, who lives with her terminally ill grandmother, Cloud Hopper by National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart is a poignant, high-flying adventure set among the old planes, Vietnam vets, and majestic hot air balloons of a run-down municipal airport. It’s about the rules we’ll break and the dangers we’ll face to do the most-right thing we can imagine, even when we’re feeling long past brave. Ages 11-14. 332 pages.

PRESS

★"Kephart’s tender, sometimes melancholy story is carefully plotted and highly readable...Its characters are its greatest strength, however. They—and their interrelationships—come to life on every page of this appealing story."—Booklist, starred review

“Kephart’s lines are sensory and musical, leaning into zephyr and tempest winds with trust that the right words have magic. Here, a blueberry is not just a blueberry: it’s a Wyatt blue, capable of intoxicating hungry souls toward compliance. A field is not just a field, but a place coined by ponds, dotted with colors, and alive with possibilities. Of the hopper’s wreckage, Sophie observes: ‘there is the stuff of her hopping machine, all that has been shattered in the forest. Rusty parts of rusted things. The patchwork balloon with its busted crooked seams’. These poetic plays ease the audience into the book’s tougher topics, including loss and xenophobia…Shared secrets have the power to set young dreamers free in the awe-inducing story Cloud Hopper.”—Foreword Reviews

“Evocative, slightly surreal, charcoal like illustrations are scattered through the text, and the prose is poetic as it delivers harsh truths about dealing with grief and loss while facing frightening circumstances. This novel touches on family, immigration, and leading with compassion. Readers will quickly get a feel for the characters, even secondary ones, and empathize with their complex, sometimes lightly unearthed stories…A moving story about what makes a family and making a home wherever you end up.”—Kirkus Reviews