Balloons Over Broadway

Written and Illustrated by:Melissa Sweet

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children Copyright Date: 2011  ISBN: 978-0-547-19945-0

Genre:  Picture Book Biography    Format: Non Fiction

Major Awards Received:

Charlotte Zolotow Award, 2012 Highly Commended United States 

Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children, 2012 Winner United States  

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal , 2012 Winner United States

Summary: This book tells the story of Tony Sarg, who is the inventor of the "upside-down marionettes" in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Ever since he was young, Tony was intrigued by the way things worked.  He enjoyed coming up with new inventions that would make people happy.

Personal response: I love the way the author tells about the creation of the balloons used in the Macy's Parade.  The illustrations are filled with so many details that you do not even have to read the text to understand the story.  My favorite is the blue elephant, that was the first balloon to rise up and create the parade as we see it today.

Classroom connections: Before reading this book to my class, I would plan so that it would take place shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday.  I would introduce the Thanksgiving holiday as one that we celebrate in the United States and go into a little more detail as to why we celebrate it.  I would then ask the class if they celebrate a holiday that we do not celebrate here in the United States.  After discussing this, I would read the book to the students, making note of the fact that Tony Sarg was an immigrant himself and one of the reasons he created the parade was so the other Macy's employees could celebrate their own holiday traditions with music and dancing in the streets.  I found the website http://www.teachingbooks.net/tb.cgi?tid=27322&a=1, which has a number of printables that students can color and make their own puppets.