Holly has created an experiment where she sends vegetable seeds into the sky with homemade balloons. Soon afterward enormous carrots, arugula and other veggies are floating over head. The only problem is Holly didn’t send and arugula up into the sky.

Kids will identify with Holly because school experiments and projects are something they experience in school. The setting of school, home, neighborhood is also familiar and will help the reader connect.

An extension activity could be to have kids try and predict the reason some veggies Holly didn’t float into the sky came back. How can this be? When the truth is revealed they will see that fantasy reading can have many unpredictable twists.

Have kids come up with a different reason for the unknown veggies and write several different endings to the story. This will promote creative writing skills and be a fun way to have kids explore the possibilities of their imagination.