Balloons Over Broadway

  Summary of Book: Balloons over Broadway was written and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. The story starts with talking about Tony Sarg and that he became a Marionette man when he was only 6 years old. When he grew uo he moved to London to continue to create his marionettes and eventually moved to New York where his popularity continued to grow. Macy's asked Sarg to create a "puppet parade" for his holiday window. And his mechanical marionettes danced and thrilled the little children who passed. Macy's decided to create a parade for immigrants that would include a street carnival from all over the world. As the parade went on, it grew more and more until it had grown to much and the real animals scared the children to much. So Macy's requested Tony to change the animals. So he decided to make much larger marionettes that could be held up in the sky. However, to make sure they were not to heavy, he made them balloons and filled them with helium. He made sure they were made out of the strongest rubber possible as well. The balloons were made in Ohio, deflated, and then shipped to New York. On the day of the parade people could look right out their windows and see the balloons. It was a parade New Yorkers would never forget. The book ends with saying that ever since then, New Yorkers will flock to see what new and exciting creations will be used in the parade. 

Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I would use this book in my classroom because it would be a fun book to read before goin on Thanksgiving break. 

Appropriate age group for this book: 4-7 years.

Ideas for unit of study to include this book or how you might

use this book in the classroom: Some ways to incorporate this book in a classroom would be to use writing prompts with the kids. So after reading the story, the teacher would have several writing prompts written on little index cards that she would choose at random. They would include prompts such as, "what would be an alternate name you could use for this book?" "Tell about a time you have gone to a parade." and others such as ""Draw and write about Sarg." or "Draw and write about a favorite part of the story."