“Little Toot” wasn’t his only children’s character. Two years later Hardie Gramatky wrote and illustrated another story about a child-like airplane (who looks a lot like the red-cheeked tugboat) — called Loopy!. “Loopy is a small airplane,” the first page announces – “the kind that flyers cheerfully call a hedgehopper.” A picture shows the speeding airplane with big round eyes and a smile on its face. It startles the cows and donkeys on the ground as it takes off over the trees. And in one drawing, it even flies over a familiar-looking tugboat in the river!

The funny drawings are filled with broad swatches of colors – something you’d expect from a former Disney animator. But Hardie Gramatky talent had many admirers. Two years ago Andrew Wyeth was asked to make a list of the greatest American artists in watercolors, and he named Edward Hopper, George O’Keefe Winslow Homer….and Hardie Gramatky. One drawing is filled with red – the drawing that warns “One mistake, and the ground feels very hard indeed.” And another illustrates Loopy’s feeling like “something shot out of a Roman candle” by drawing his trail across the sky as a spectacular pink streak. There’s a tight pink circle as the plane dreams of soaring across the sky. One reviewer described many of the book’s colors as “nautical blues and greens and stormy blacks, painted in a dashing off-hand manner.”

Loopy flies student pilots – who sometimes fly him too close to the jets, or once, straight into a clothesline. The plane winces as he bounces along a runway, leading to a lengthy grounding and service by mechanics. What does Loopy want? To fly free across the sky, without a pilot to steer him. He writes “Loop the loop with Loopy” in fancy letters across the sky, and soars speedily in front of a flock of seagull. But instead, a showoff climbs inside the disappointed plane.

“The wind blew like a hurricane” as the amateur flies directly into a storm cloud. The lightning flashes in their face. The instrument dials glare like angry faces. And then the pilot abandons Loopy altogether. But the plane realizes this is his moment, and he rises to the challenge. “Loopy’s stubby little fuselage contains a stout heart,” reads the dust jacket. The plane pulls out of a nosedive. He startles an eagle on a hillside. He even flies derisive circles around the parachuting pilot. Loopy beams, and returns to fame – and the skywriting gig that he’s always dreamed of.And a parade of birds follows him home in triumph.