A lyrical celebration of the ocean of air (""You could consider our atmosphere to be/ a far-reaching playground/ where gases and swarms of dust go/ back and forth between the sky and earth"") which floats us effortlessly through Priestley's experiments, the breakdown of nitrogen by bacteria, particles in the air, evaporation and condensation and -- ultimately -- takes us for a balloon ride up into the stratosphere. The nicely muted language is ill served by Mizumura's drab gray watercolors which have none of the delicacy of Betty Fraser's illustrations for Kalina's The House That Nature Built, but it's still a pleasant surprise to see a science lecture so gracefully delivered.