Book Blog: Balloons Over Broadway

Image Credit: International Reading Association

“Quite simply, Tony Sarg just never grew up,” his daughter Mary once said.  From the time Anthony “Tony” Frederick Sarg was a little boy, he loved making things!  One of the first things he made got him out of doing his chores.  He invented a way to feed his family’s chickens from his bed!  But, it was eventually his specialty of making marionette puppets that got him his most well-known job as the puppeteer of the annual Macy’s Parade.

And, just like Tony Sarg, Melissa Sweet, the author and illustrator of this book, created the art for this book out of a whole host of materials!  Some of the images on the pages are her drawings, some are actual photographs of Tony Sarg with his creations, some are photographs of toys and puppets that Melissa made herself, and some of the pages use Tony’s illustrations from his book called The Tony Sarg Marionette Book.  The result is a visual feast on the page with heaps of interesting little tidbits to examine and ideas for your own creations!

Image Credit: International Reading Association

THE DETAILS

Title: Balloons Over Broadway
Author: Melissa Sweet
Illustrator: Melissa Sweet
Copyright: 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-19945-0
Dewey: 791.5
Reading Range: K-3
Curriculum Connection: This book has a wide range of opportunities for curricular connections: a fun read-aloud with our puppet-loving Kinder teacher, a read-aloud with our Grade 1 students who study inventors, a biography for multiple grade levels, or an idea-book for middle school and high school art students who are exploring the use of different mediums for creating.

WORKS CITED

“5 Questions With… Melissa Sweet.” Engage: A Reading Today Blog. International Reading Association, 23 Nov. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2013.

Sweet, Melissa. Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin for Children, 2011. Print.