Written by: Melissa Sweet
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Reading Level: Ages 4 and up
Balloons Over Broadway is the Sibert Award winner. The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal is awarded annually to the author and illustrator of the most distinguished informational book published in the United States in English during the preceding year. The award is named in honor of Robert F. Sibert, the long-time President of Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc. of Jacksonville, Illinois.
Balloons over Broadway is the story of Tony Sarg. From the time Tony Sarg was a boy, he loved to figure out how to make things move. He loved making puppets on strings move and said he was going to be a marionette man when he grew up. He was always coming up with ways to make things move. For example, his dad used to have him wake up early in the morning to feed the chickens, something Tony hated because he liked his sleep, and Tony figured out a way to do it without having to get out of bed. When Tony grew up he moved to London and discovered that no one was making marionettes anymore. So started creating puppets which turned out to be a success. Everyone loved them. In New York City their biggest store was Macy's. Macy's had heard about Tony's wonderful puppets and wanted him to make some for their store. What Tony made turned out to be a hit! Eventually, Macy's started a parade every Thanksgiving for the foreigners who missed their families during the holidays. They wanted Tony to build big puppets for their parade. It took Tony a couple of tries to perfect his puppets but soon, everyone wanted to go see the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade and see all of Tony's puppets. Tony was right. He would grow to be a marionette man. He also helped the success of one of the biggest parades of all time. I love how this book is organized. The illustrations are amazing. Some pages have only illustrations while others have drawings of papers glued and taped together. Even if you cannot read well yet, you can still enjoy the wonderful pictures. Children will get inspired by this book and may want to learn how to play with puppets. They might even start experimenting with making things move. I recommend this book to both children and adults.
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