This book is terrible! Years ago, my friend and I got stuck in a bookstore during a downpour, and picked up PO-WNC. We were both on the floor with laughter. Until it hurt. Reading horrible lines to each other between wild guffaws. For Christmas that year, she sent it to me. Just as gloriously awful as the first read! For her birthday, I sent it back. This book has been going back and forth between us for almost a decade, and getting that package is always a cherished dread. Certainly not something for children, as it would set an abysmal literary example, I recon. It is, however, the perfect gift for the stoner in your life. Maybe that's you?

I am a big fan of this book. After all since 1983, John's appeared in Be Cool, Ladder 49, The Punisher, Basic, Domestic Disturbance, Swordfish, Lucky Numbers, Battlefield Earth, The General's Daughter, A Civil Action, Mad City, Face/Off, Michael, White Man's Burden, Broken Arrow, Shout, the Look Who's Talking franchise, The Experts, Perfect, Staying Alive and Two of a Kind-- so it's about time he did ANYTHING that his adoring public could find even the tiniest shred of his talent in -- Get Shorty and Pulp Fiction notwithstanding. I would urge Mr. Travolta to get a new agent.

I know it wasn't initally meant to be published as a mass-market novel, but that doesn't really excuse the fact that it isn't very good when it does reach the bookstore shelves. Short and poorly written, this story follows an 8 year old boy on his first plane trip. He is excited as this is his life-long dream - to fly in a plane. We also see a disturbing view of his mother who doesn't seem to be a model parent.

Overall, it was boring but blessedly short. A good actor Mr. Travolta may be, but an author he is not!

Oh, my.

I knew I was in trouble when the author opened this book with a preening, excited section about how he wrote the book: How the idea came to him, how he spent many nights in the glorious process of writing, how all his friends just loved the editions he had printed up just for them.

Well... I'm sure when total strangers come up to you on the street and tell you how wonderful you are, when you have a large staff whose only purpose is to serve and please you, and when you are, sadly, a good ways down the hill on the left side of the bell curve, you might just think you can actually write.

Travolta can't. I feel sorry for the guy, he obviously put a lot of time and thought into this book. But it's just awful -- saccharine, cliched, repetitive, and worst of all, boring. There's just no story. A little kid rides a planes and likes it. The attempts at making it seem magical and enchanting are forced and poorly done.

And finally, horribly, worst of all: Travolta reads it himself, the entire thing, in what he imagines is the eager voice of a young boy. I still shudder thinking about it.

A refreshing and delightful tale of a young boy mesmerized at the prospect of airplanes and the wonder and possibilities within. In 1962, at the age of 8, he finally gets the opportunity to live this dream and board one of these silver creatures of the skies. His rather amazing mother chooses to go from Newark to Los Angeles, via the Propeller One-Way Night Coach, which leaves at 9 p.m. with stops in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Des Moines, Denver and Las Vegas, arriving in Los Angeles at 3 p.m. Due to an unexpected snowstorm and other twists and turns, the flight actually takes them much longer - with everything sparkling with magic and newness and wonder - and some truly amazing people along the way. Written as a children's story, I know of several little boys who will probably wear this book out.