Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade
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.    

The Elephant Scientist

The Elephant Scientist
Written by: Caitlin O’Connell and Donna M. Jackson
Photographs by: Caitlin O’Connell and Timothy Rodwelland
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Reading Level: Ages 9 and up

The Elephant Scientist is a Robert F. Sibert Informational Book honor award.  The Elephant Scientist is a really interesting book about Caitlin O'Connell who studies Elephants.  The beginning of the book shows Caitlin as a child studying frogs and eventually studying Elephants.  Caitlin's dreams came true and she was able to go to Africa to study her passion.  She loves elephants so much that the villagers would call her the mother of all elephants.  Throughout the book Caitlin and her team watch the elephants and study them.  She watches out for their behaviors such as how they respond to each others alarms, and how the girl elephants stick together while the boy elephants or bulls stick together.  If you like elephants, then you will love this book.  This book will teach you so much about these huge mammals.  Within this book you will see many pictures of elephants including close ups of things such as their foot prints to photographs of elephants playing together.  You will also of course see pictures of Caitlin doing her work.  The elephants are one of my favorite zoo animals, so I just knew that I would really enjoy reading this book.  I found this book to be really interesting and now I know more about elephants than I ever thought I would.  Also by the end of this book, Caitlin makes an important discovery about elephants.  If you would like to know what it is then go get this book and read it!  It is a book you are guaranteed to love.

Young Fredle (Audio Book)

Young Fredle (Audio Book)
Written by: Cynthia Voigt
Narrated by: Wendy Carter
Produced by: Listening Library, an imprint of Random House Audio Publishing Group, Random House, Inc.
Reading Level: Ages 8 and up

Young Fredle was given an Odyssey Honor Award.  The Odyssey award is given to the producer of the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States.

Young Fredle is a wonderful children's story about a house kitchen mouse who is very careful, yet very curious at the same time.  Mice have their own way to forage or hunt for food and if there is a mouse who is ill or injured and can't forage right, then they will be pushed out onto the pantry floor and into went.  What is went?  No mouse knows, and they don't want to know.  One night Fredle's nose and sweet tooth get the better of him when he smells something really delicious.  Not being able to help himself, he and his cousin Axle go and see if they can find the source of that wonderful smell.  When they find it, they start eating it and Fredle realizes that it is the most delicious thing he has ever tasted.  He doesn't know it but what he has found is a peppermint patty.  After eating what he can of that peppermint patty Fredle gets a big tummy ache.  His tummy hurts so bad that he can't even move!  Axle tries to get Fredle to run away with her before he gets pushed into went but Fredle can't move.  Soon he finds himself being pushed onto the pantry floor.  Too ill to move Fredle stays where he is at and is ready to face being eaten by a cat or whatever happens in went.  Luckily for Fredle, the Missus takes him outside.  This starts a whole new adventure for Fredle.  Never having been outside, he is introduced to a whole new world.  He starts learning things about the outside such as the food they eat, what the sky and moon and stars is, what flowers are, and what racoons are.  Once Fredle gets outside instinct tells him to eat grass which makes him feel better.  Once he does that, he tries to make it home but is overcome with a few obstacles on the way.  Will Fredle ever make it home?  If he does make it home, will Fredle miss the outside and all the wonderful things he has leaned?  To find out read this book.  I guarantee you that you will not be sorry. 
I normally do not listen to audio books but since this book was an Odyssey honor award book, I decided to give it a try.  I was not sorry.  Wendy Carter is a wonderful narrator making perfect voices to fit the characters.  Her voice lets your imagination run away.  This audio book would be perfect to listen to during a long drive. 

Grandpa Green

Grandpa Green
Written and Illustrated by: Lane Smith
Published by: Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership
Reading Level: Ages 5 and up

Grandpa Green is a 2012 Caldecott Honor Award book.  I really enjoyed reading this book.  I thought it was really sweet. This is a story about family history, legacy, and love. In this book a little boy is talking about his Grandpa Greens life while walking through his great grandpa's garden which helps to tell the story of his life.  In this story, you find that Grandpa green not only used to be a farm boy but he is an artist.  Through his farming and art you hear the story of how Grandpa Green used to feed the pigs, how he stole his first kiss and where he met his wife.  While reading this book you can tell how proud of this great grandpa this boy is.  This book made me a little emotional having lost both my grandpas last summer.  Even now I love finding pieces of their lives.  In this book, Grandpa Green's garden tells his life story.  Anyone who would walk this garden would be living a story.  This book is very green in its illustrations because of all the plants.  I really enjoyed the illustrations.  They really helped bring the story to life.  This book is perfect for both children and adults.  

Me...Jane

Me...Jane
Written and Illustrated by: Patrick McDonnell
Published by: Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Reading Level: Ages 1 and up

Me...Jane was a 2012 Caldecott honor book.  This is the inspirational story of Jane Goodall and how she went from being a child who loved nature to a woman who studied nature.  It all started when she got her stuffed toy chimpanzee named Jubilee, which she took everywhere.  She loved to be outside and watch nature.  She read and learned everything she could about animals and plants by reading books and studying the animals and plants in her very yard.  She dreamed until one day her dreams came true.  This story is full of wonderful illustrations of Jane and her animals.  In the end there is a small paragraph about Jane Goodall and also a message from Jane.  Any nature lover will be inspired by this book.

Black Out

Black Out
Written and Illustrated by: John Rocco
Published by: Disney · Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group
Reading Level: Ages 4 and up

Black Out is a Caldecott Honor book award.  I found this story to be really cute and the illustrations to be wonderful..  The first thing I noticed when I opened the book was how great the illustrations looked which is why it got the Caldecott honor award.  In this story, everyone is busy doing something whether it is talking on the phone, doing something on the computer, or cooking.  All the main character of the story wants to do is play with his family but no one will stop doing what they are doing.  Suddenly, the lights go out.  All of the lights.  At first, no one knows what to do, then finally the flashlights and candles come out.  The main character gets really hot and sticky and decides to go upstairs where they see lots of lights from the stars, and also from their neighbors.  Then when they hear noise downstairs they go downstairs to a block party.  It is really fun, but when the lights come back on, everything goes back to normal.  This story was written in the form of a comic book or graphic novel with different windows for different reads.  Perfect for any child who likes to read or just wants to look at the pictures.

The Running Dream

The Running Dream
Written by Wendelin Van Draanen
Published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Reading Level: Ages 12 and up

The Running Dream the teen (ages 14-18) award winner for the Schneider Family Book Award.  I found this book to be very inspiring.  Jessica is in her junior year in high school.  She loves to run.  Running is her life.  She wakes up at 5:45 am everyday and runs around her neighborhood with her dog, and she is in the track team.  One disastrous day, after a really great meet for Jessica, during the bus ride home a really bad accident occurs.  A man driving a car crashes into the bus that Jessica was in.  This accident injures Jessica really badly and it turns out that she has to have her leg amputated.  Jessica is crushed.  Running is her life and now she will never run again.  The beginning of this book begins with Jessica in the hospital feeling really down about her leg.  She doesn't know how to deal with the fact that she cannot take a shower let alone walk herself to the bathroom.  After moping around for a little while and avoiding her friends, her best friend convinces her to get the courage to go to school.  Once Jessica is in school, she realizes that it isn't too bad and it is a first step to being better.  During her first day back, she meets a girl named Rosa who has cerebral palsy.  Rosa is a math genius and just wants everyone to see her for who she is and not her condition.  Jessica finds out she can relate to her.  Jessica is finally able to get her new leg, and at first it seems like a dream but she learns to walk again.  This makes her very happy and get a little more optimistic.  Then she learns what her coach, best friend, and fellow track team mates are trying to do for her.  They want to raise enough money to buy Jessica a running leg.  They are calling their campaign, the Help Jessica Run campaign.  Their goal is to raise $20,000.  Jessica doesn't believe that this could happen but everyday her running dream is getting closer and closer to coming true.  Will Jessica indeed run again?  
This story is a very inspirational story and after reading it, it makes me happy for what I have.  In life you take things like your arms and legs for granted, but what would happen if you lost them?  This story makes me appreciate everything I have in life, but also makes me value my life.  I now know that if I ever hit an obstacle like Jessica did, I will be able to conquer it and get through it.  I recommend this book for any teenager and adult out there.