The Biscuit Balloon

Toby is a cheerful village baker with curly ginger hair, a flour-dusted apron and a fondness for experimenting with new recipes. One morning he mixes flour, sugar and butter, adds a pinch of this and a dash of that, and shapes the dough into a giant round biscuit as big as a cartwheel. When he opens the oven, the biscuit has puffed up enormous and golden, with two chocolate-chip eyes that seem to twinkle at him. Tying a string of red-and-white bunting beneath it, Toby discovers the biscuit floats like a balloon, and soon he is lifted right out of his bakery, cart and all, into the sky above his village.

What follows is a gentle, accidental adventure. Toby drifts over golden wheat fields and wildflower patches, waving at surprised cows and scattering sheep, while birds fly alongside him. Below, a young rabbit named Pip spots the strange flying shape and bounds along the path cheering him on, and Granny Maple salutes him from her apple garden with the reminder that creativity is a wonderful thing. When the wind grows stronger, Toby learns to steer by tugging the bunting strings as if flying a kite. But the biscuit balloon is slowly shrinking, and he must find a safe place to land. Written by Yavuz DEMİRKIRAN for young children and for adults reading aloud to them, this tale can be read on Online Masal.