Balloons Over Broadway

Sweet, M.  (2011).  Balloons over Broadway:  The true story of the puppeteer of Macy's parade.  NY: Houghton.

Tony Sarg, originally maker of marionettes, is the reason why we have been enjoying balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for more than eighty years.  Tony made his first marionette when he was six years old.  As an adult, he went to work for Macy's with his dancing marionettes in their store windows.  Then, they gave him his biggest project of all:  marionettes for a parade.  Tony turned his marionettes into balloons and the rest is history!

Balloons Over Broadway tells the story of how Tony Sarg turned his marionettes into the balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  The book’s colorful pictures will draw in readers to this informational book.  It begins with a black and white photograph of Sarg so the readers know that the book is about a real person despite the fun drawings. The illustrations switch from being full page, to being five to a page (like being glued on), to being vertical, and to going across two pages. Some of the text looks like letters cut out of a magazine.   The best part is the back page which is the original advertisement from the 1933 New York Times.  All of this makes up a wonderful design that captivates its readers! 

Lesson Plans:

http://islma.org/pdf/2014MonarchAwardMasterList/Balloons_over_Broadway.pdf