Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Johnny. Every day, as he walked to school, he would always look up at the sky and watch the clouds float by. He was fascinated by the shapes and forms that the clouds took on, and would often imagine different animals and characters in them. But he never paid attention to where he was going, so everyone called him “Johnny Head-In-Air.”
One day, as he was walking and staring at the sky, a little dog ran in front of him and he didn’t see it. He bumped into the dog and they both fell to the ground. The dog yelped in surprise and Johnny tumbled to the ground, scraping his knee. The other kids laughed and teased him, calling him “Johnny Head-In-Air” again. Johnny felt embarrassed and ashamed, and vowed to pay more attention to where he was going.
But it was hard for Johnny to break his habit of looking up at the sky. He loved the feeling of being transported to another world when he watched the clouds. And so, the next time he was walking by a river, he found himself once again staring up at the sky, watching the swallows fly. He was so focused on watching them that he didn’t notice he was getting close to the edge of the river.
He accidentally fell into the water, and even though he cried for help, two men had to rescue him with sticks. He was soaking wet and lost his writing book. Even the fishes came back to mock him.
Johnny felt even more embarrassed and ashamed this time. He realized that while it was fun to watch the clouds and the birds, it was important to pay attention to the world around him.
Credits
Heinrich Hoffmann was a 19th-century German physician and author best known for creating Struwwelpeter (1845), a landmark collection of cautionary tales for children. Johnny Head-in-Air first appeared in that collection, where each story humorously illustrates the consequences of a child's particular bad habit. Hoffmann originally wrote the stories as a Christmas gift for his three-year-old son, finding existing children's books of the era too dull and preachy.
