Balloons Over Braodway: The Story Of The Puppeteer Of Macy's Parade (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
First, let me say that this is the first time I have had this many students ask to put a biography on hold after I shared it with my classes. The juxtaposition of photographs with the fun spirited drawings was wonderful and I would like to think it would have p!eased what I suspect was Tony Sarg's sense of fun. during the lesson, I found d that the classes seemed much more enthralled when I editorialized some about the time period, including the impromptu math lesson on determining how many years ago the Macy's parade started, and attempted to put the time period into perspective by talking about why mechanized puppets might be so exciting to the people of the 1920's as opposed to our techno-saturated, specials effects numb selves. The bibliography at the end gave a chance for a plug on citations, "see, published authors cite sources too". I do wish that the text had been more explicit about where he was from. it never tells us where he was born, just that he moved to London then to New York. That said, the story made me appreciate the Macy's parade all the more.I paired this story with an online article about Macy's parades of yore to give my students some perspective on the size of these balloons and to let those who have never watched the parade see so!e of it. Genre: Nonfiction Children's book/ BiographyAge: 5+ years oldSummary: "Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of the Macy’s Parade" written by Melissa Sweet, is the true story of a puppeteer, Tony Sarg. Tony loved to play with puppets and make them come to life. As he got older and moved to London, he started making marionettes. Once he moves to New York City, the company Macy’s asked him to make a puppet parade display for a storefront window for the holidays. There was so much success with this display the store asked him to make a parade in the streets of New York on Thanksgiving. Each year the parade grew and grew and made the parade a holiday tradition.Comments:This is a great book explaining the holiday tradition of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. I have seen this parade so many times that it was great to see how the tradition got started. This book shows how one opportunity can change so much of someone's life. Tony was a puppeteer and ended up getting a huge break and being wildly successful.Observations: The illustrations throughout this book are great. Everything looks cartoonish and slightly disproportionate. This style is appealing to readers, especially for younger readers. The colors of the book are inviting and realistic making the story seem like it could happen anywhere. For this story, the words are needed, but the pictures enhance the words and book would not be as effective if the pictures were not there.Questions:How did Macy's approach Tony? What has to happen to produce the parade? How much preparation goes into in the parade?Use in Classroom:The students could make their own parade! Each person could make their own float and the students could walk all around the classroom with their float. A one page explanation of their float would accompany the float and would get turned in as well.Theme:The theme of this book is hard work pays off. Tony the puppeteer started from the very bottom just playing about with puppets to designing the whole Thanksgiving Day parade. This shows students that they could start at the bottom and work their way up to great heights and have influential jobs.Criticism:I wish this book would have gone into more detail regarding the actual parade and the work that goes into producing the parade. But the main character, Tony shows the reader that anything can happen if you keep hope and work hard.Format: Picture bookRace/Ethnicity: N\AGender: N\ASocioeconomic status: N\ACitation: Sweet, M., & Newborn, R. (2011). Balloons over Broadway: The true story of the puppeteer of Macy's Parade. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.
What do You think about Balloons Over Braodway: The Story Of The Puppeteer Of Macy's Parade (2012)?
The illustrations along with the factual story make this book a great picture book for children.
—Jonathan
Very informative! Would be good to read around thanksgiving time.
—ohdamn
Love the story and the illustrations!
—lavenderbrown
