The Fantastic Flying Journey

"The Fantastic Flying Journey" (ISBN 0755104366) is a children's book written by Gerald Durrell. It is a story about three children and their great-uncle Lancelot travelling around the world in a hot air balloon. It has been published by Conran Octopus, in 1987. It is illustrated by Graham Percy. In 1989, Durrell wrote a sequel for this book called The Fantastic Dinosaur Adventure.

Plot

One day, a hot air balloon lands in the garden of the Dollybuts. A fat old man owns it: Great-Uncle Lancelot. He tells Mrs Dollybut and her three children that he's after his brother, Perceval, who is lost in the jungles of Africa, looking for gorillas. Perceval is a scientist, who invented a magic dust, which makes you able to communicate with animals.

Lancelot takes the three children, Emma, Ivan and Conrad with him to track Uncle Perceval. On their way, they several animals, such as a swallow, a camel and a fennec fox, who tell them many interesting facts about their lives. In the jungle, the gorillas tell them that Perceval left for South Africa, to meet some elephants.

Lancelot and the three children follow Perceval to South Africa, and then to Australia,the North Pole, Canada, North America, Brazil and Patagonia. On their way, they meet a crocodile, a rhinoceros, some koalas, a platypus, a blue whale, some killer whales, polar bears, musk oxen, beavers, buffalos, monarch butterflies, a boa constrictor, some howler monkeys, penguins and elephant seals. Everywhere, they learn something about the animals, their habitat, behaviour and dangers threatening them.

In the end, the elephant seal tells them that Uncle Perceval has returned to Britain. So they follow him there, and find Perceval in the Dollybut's house. The chase lasted a whole year, but the children all agree it was not a waste of time after all.

Trivia

* Durrell based the character of Great-Uncle Lancelot on himself. His brother Perceval was loosely based on Lawrence Durrell.
* The personality of the animals in the book usually reflects Durrell's opinion about those species. For examples, the gorillas have a lovable personality, because Durrell was on good terms with his gorillas at the Jersey Zoo. On the contrary, the camel is rude and nasty, because when Durrell worked at Whipsnade Zoo, he was bitten by a camel.