Up In the Clouds

Dunno's Adventures #9

by Nikolay Nosov, Boris Kalaushin (Illustrator), Margaret Wettlin (Translator)

"So smoothly did the balloon rise into the air that our brave explorers were quite unaware of it..."

Genres: Russia, Fiction, Childrens

16 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Nikolai(y) Nikolaevich Nosov (Russian: Николай Николаевич Носов,Николай Носов, Ukrainian: Микола Миколайович Носов; 23 November [O.S. 10 November] 1908, Kiev – 26 July 1976, Moscow) was a Soviet children's literature writer, the author of a number of humorous short stories, a school novel, and the popular trilogy of fairy tale novels about the adventures of Neznaika and his friends.

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this ninth entry in Nikolai Nosov's picture-book series about Dunno - Незнайка, meaning "don't know," in the original Russian - the Mites who ascended in Doono's balloon in Up in the Air in a Balloon (Doono, so named because he does know things, is Dunno's opposite), continue on their aerial journey, arguing amongst themselves. From Dunno's belief that the dark spot following their balloon is Dot the dog (it is Doono who informs the companions that it is the balloon's shadow), to his refusal to accept that the balloon is floating through the clouds (since, as everyone knows, they are made of meringue, not fog), there are plenty of opportunities for dispute. P'raps and Prob'ly, in the meantime, cause chaos as they attempt to "help" with the navigation...

Like its immediate predecessors, Up in the Clouds is not a stand-alone story - these English language picture-books are apparently individual chapters from the original, longer work - and should be read in proper order, to get the full effect. The narrative picks up exactly where the previous book left off, and cuts off in mid-flight, no doubt to be continued in the subsequent title, ominously named An Accident . I continue to feel, as I have done with the foregoing eight entries in the Dunno series, that I am missing some of the appeal of these books, perhaps through issues of translation. My feeling that they are a little too preachy persists, although so too does my appreciation for the stylized, folksy artwork. Recommended primarily to those readers who, like me, are interested in the development of children's literature around the world.

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once upon a time, in a town in fairyland, lived some people called the Mites. They were called the Mites because they were very tiny. The biggest of them was no bigger than a pine cone. Their town was very pretty. Around every house grew daisies, dandelions, and honeysuckle, and the streets were all named after flowers: Blue-bell Street, Daisy Lane, and Primrose Avenue. That is why the town was called Flower Town. It stood on the bank of a little brook. The Mites called it Cucumber River because so many cucumbers grew on its banks.

[Nilusha Abeysekara · Rating 3 out of 5]

වැඩ බැරි දාස ගැන කතා (9) - ගුවනේ පියැඹීම