We'll All Go Flying

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

“We’ll all go flying / In the great, wide sky / My friend Maggee /
And Jesse and I. / In a fat balloon / That can float so high, / Flying,
flying / In the great wide sky. / We’ll all go flying / In the morning
sky / And what will we spy / In the sky so high?” Well, for those of
you who can’t stand the suspense, the three intrepid balloonists end
up spying one getting-up sun, two helicopters, three zig-zag flashes,
four swift blue birds, five wind-dancer kites, six pea green parrots,
seven spooky gray shapes, eight frisky white goats, nine squeaky black
bats, and ten spaceships.

This is the sequel to We’ll All Go Sailing (2001), for which Kim
LaFave was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award in the
Illustration category. As in the first volume, the verse tweaks the
reader’s curiosity about what the three characters will see and then
provides the answer hidden under a flap. Also as in the first volume,
there is a nice retro feel to the book. Maggie Spicer and Richard
Thomson’s whimsical verse echoes the style of a 19th-century parlor
song, and LaFave’s characters are drawn as if they just stepped out of
a 1920s comic strip. The combination of comedy and bold color on every
page gives the book a multigenerational appeal. A complete version of
the text is reprinted in the back for easy reading.

We’ll All Go Flying deserves to be as popular as its predecessor.
Let’s hope we’ll see more of these three quirky kid characters.
Highly recommended.