http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/balloons-over-broadway-melissa-sweet/1100042896
Sweet, Melissa. 2011. Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780547199450
Summary
Tony Sarg from a young age loved figuring out how to make things move. This book tells the story of how Sarg went from making marionettes, to working for Macy's making mechanical marionette window displays, and then becoming the puppeteer responsible for creating the balloon puppets in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Tony Sarg from a young age loved figuring out how to make things move. This book tells the story of how Sarg went from making marionettes, to working for Macy's making mechanical marionette window displays, and then becoming the puppeteer responsible for creating the balloon puppets in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Critical Analysis
Sweet presents Tony Sarg's career, and the events leading up to his career, in a clear and logical manner. Readers are introduced to Tony Sarg with a photograph, the dates of his life, and his quote on the meaning of movement, which provides a frame and context for the subject of the book. Arranged chronologically, Sweet begins with Sarg's early childhood and his invention of a pulley system that allowed him to both complete his chores and sleep in later. Sweet, also, shows how Sarg, while working for Macy's progressively developed his ideas for the marionettes and then balloons that would make the Thanksgiving Day Parade bigger and better. The books details the evolution of Sarg's creation of the balloon design and construction from air-filled rubber to the lighter, floating helium-filled rubberized silk.
Melissa Sweet's Balloons Over Broadway delights and informs the reader with this accurate, yet whimsical fusion of information and illustration. Many elements of the book allow the reader to trust the accuracy of Sweet's information. An artist and toy enthusiast herself, Sweet consulted numerous people and institutions to research Tong Sarg. Some of her sources include John Bell and Bart Roccoberton of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, the Nantucket Historical Association, and Macy's senior counsel. She recognizes their contribution in a thank you section on her citation page. Sweet includes a thorough bibliography list that cites her sources and, also, includes a quote source list that cites the origin of the quotes used throughout the book. Sweet designed the illustrations with Sarg's creations in mind and based her some of her artwork on toys in Tony Sarg's collection.
Sweet presents Tony Sarg's career, and the events leading up to his career, in a clear and logical manner. Readers are introduced to Tony Sarg with a photograph, the dates of his life, and his quote on the meaning of movement, which provides a frame and context for the subject of the book. Arranged chronologically, Sweet begins with Sarg's early childhood and his invention of a pulley system that allowed him to both complete his chores and sleep in later. Sweet, also, shows how Sarg, while working for Macy's progressively developed his ideas for the marionettes and then balloons that would make the Thanksgiving Day Parade bigger and better. The books details the evolution of Sarg's creation of the balloon design and construction from air-filled rubber to the lighter, floating helium-filled rubberized silk.
Melissa Sweet uses gouache, collage, and mixed media to create the illustration of Balloons Over Broadway. Her mixed media collages creates textured illustrations that draws the reader into her pages. Sweet made actual toys herself to bring Sarg's world to life, and she captures the excitement of the times, the parade route, and the parade itself with beautifully softly washed paintings. Sweets lively and detailed illustrations make Sarg's creations more tangible to the reader. For example, she uses collage, drawing, print and photograph to illustrate and label a design for a puppet window for Macy's department store.
Sweet has created a lively book that details an interesting person and time in American history. From her newspaper cutout lettering to the colorful spools of thread and buttons, Sweet's illustrations capture the joyfulness of the time and the parade. She includes just enough detail that the reader is not overwhelmed with information, but instead finishes the book with an appreciation for Tony Sarg's passion and inventiveness, which began an American holiday tradition.
Sweet has created a lively book that details an interesting person and time in American history. From her newspaper cutout lettering to the colorful spools of thread and buttons, Sweet's illustrations capture the joyfulness of the time and the parade. She includes just enough detail that the reader is not overwhelmed with information, but instead finishes the book with an appreciation for Tony Sarg's passion and inventiveness, which began an American holiday tradition.
A Booklist, September 15, 2011, starred review calls Sweet's book, "A joyous piece of nonfiction that informs and delights in equal parts."
Awards
In 2012, Balloons Over Broadway won both the Robert F. Siebert Informational Book Award and the Orbis Pictus Award.
In 2012, Balloons Over Broadway won both the Robert F. Siebert Informational Book Award and the Orbis Pictus Award.
Connections
Books In Print. Texas Woman's University. Accessed October 23, 2013
The Houghton Mifflin Books for Children website offers a Balloons Over Broadway Activity kit that could be used as a storytime craft to accompany the book. With the kit, children could make "Paddle Puppets" by gluing cutout animals to paddle sticks to be used as masks or pretend parade balloons. Children could also draw and design their own parade balloons with construction paper and crayons. The website has an elephant balloon design, which librarians are free to photocopy and distribute, and children could construct the design into a hat to pretend they are balloons in the parade.
"Balloons Over Broadway Activity Kit." Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Accessed October 24, 2013. http://www.hmhbooks.com/kids/resources/BalloonsOverBroadway_ActivityKit.pdf
Books In Print. Texas Woman's University. Accessed October 23, 2013
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