So the story is one of a scientist coming back to the town he grew up in and deciding to float the whole town and its inhabitants (with their not-fully-comprehending buy-in) into the clouds. I read this to my daughter over the course of MONTHS because we only read a few pages a night and never felt a real urge to push on for more pages because the story never got exciting. There were random characters and plots thrown in and then ignored while other boring plots (the baker makes very heavy bread loaves for example) revisited again and again. Boring story, but I appreciate having that reading time with my 10-year-old. I know she was humoring me, she reads high school level books at this point, but she still likes to have the bed time routine. I know we'll get to more books and won't leave it on this note. ( )