Children can take a picture-book trip through our nation’s capital by following two parallel visual journeys in this zany wordless story. They’ll walk with a boy and girl and their grandma through the National Gallery of Art and notice more than a dozen works of art actually located there. They’ll also follow the progress of the girl’s large balloon, left behind on its string at the last minute with a sidewalk photographer. The balloon blows away, the photographer grabs her life-size cardboard image of George Washington, and the chase is on. She rushes in and out of famous monuments, lugging George under her arm. More than two dozen famous Washington personages--past and present--can be spotted amidst the landscape of national monuments during her mad dash. These two parallel stories are filled with visual details rendered in cartoon art similar to that in the similarly engaging volume, You Can’t Take A Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum (Dial, 1998). (Ages 3-8)

Since this is not her first trip to a museum, this little girl knows her bright orange balloon will not be allowed inside the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The solution seems simple: Ask the kindly photographer in front of the museum to look after the balloon. But while the girl, her brother, and her grandmother are inside, the balloon sails away, starting off a collision of art, history, and urban life that becomes increasingly comical and exciting. "Lots of fun, either as preparation for a visit to Washington, D.C., or as a way to encourage children to take the time to really examine the pictures in a book." (Booklist)