A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

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.