Picture Book #14 Balloons Over Broadway (Caldecott Honor Winner)

Author: Melissa Sweet

Title: Balloons Over Broadway

Illustrator: Melissa Sweet

Readability: 5.4

Genre: Picture Book

Subgenre: Biography/ Informational

Theme: Hardwork will always pay off

Character: Anthony “Tony” Frederick Sarg, R.H. Macy

Award(s) date of publication: Caldecott Honor Winner, 2011

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary:

Balloons over Broadway is the true story of the marionette maker from London who moved to New York City for the Tony Sarg Marionettes to begin performing on Browadway.  When R. H. Macy’s heard about the marionettes they decide to ask him to make puppets based on the holiday storybook stories and make them move for the windows for the holiday season. Then Macy’s decide they wanted to have a huge parade for all the immigrants to celebrate the American holiday like they do in the native countries. Since the Thanksgiving parade was such a success with made costumes and built horse drawn floats, and Macy’s even arranged to bring in bears, elephants, and camels from Central Park Zoo. Tony tried to replace the animals with puppets with something that was strong enough to hold up in bad weather yet enough to move up and down the streets. He used rubber material from a blimp company out of Ohio. He used the idea from Indonesia rod puppets and put the rods on the puppets and made them come to life. The next year he decided that he wanted the puppets to be controlled for the bottom instead of the top.  He filled the balloons with air and helium. He tied them down with sandbags the night before the next day the balloons filled the air. The balloons moved down the street ending in front of Macy’s at Tony’s  Wondertown windows. It was said that it was a parade New Yorkers would never forget. From that day on the sidewalks of New York are filled for the Macy’s famous parade every Thanksgiving morning.

How to use in the classroom:

I think it would be great for students to do a webquest over the Macy’s day parade.  Finding which balloons are the favorite for the world, which parade was the largest, and other facts about the parade. Then I would have the students make their own puppets or even do different science experiments dealing with different types of air.