Module 7: Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade

Module 7

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet

Summary:

This is an informational book about Tony Sarg, a puppeteer who created the first giant balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade. It details his early innovation in childhood, and his initial career in puppetry in Europe and New York. Then he is hired to create automated puppetry displays for the windows at Macy’s department store. When Macy’s decides to have a Thanksgiving parade Sarg has to figure out how to create puppets large enough that people on the street can see them and how he can have puppeteers control them from below. His innovative design led to the development of the balloons that have been an anticipated part of the Macy’s parade ever since.

Citation

Sweet, M. (2011). Balloons over Broadway: The True story of the puppeteer of Macy’s Parade. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

My impressions
This is a great informational picture book on an unusual topic. The illustrations are whimsical and detailed. There is a lot of information that kids can discover in the illustrations that will be engaging. There is some advanced vocabulary that would be difficult for young readers to read on their own, but this would be a great read aloud. I read this to my 5 year old twins who love balloons and they really enjoyed it.

Review from Kirkus Reviews

This bright, brimming picture biography commemorates Tony Sarg, a brilliant, self-taught artist whose innovative helium balloons delighted legions of Macy’s parade watchers from 1928 on.

Sweet sketches Sarg’s career as a puppeteer and marionette-maker. Moving from London to New York City, where his marionettes performed on Broadway, Sarg engineered mechanical storybook characters for Macy’s “Wondertown” holiday windows. In 1924, he created floats and costumes for the first Macy’s parade, which celebrated both immigrant and American holiday traditions. When the annual parade’s lions and tigers (borrowed from the Central Park Zoo) frightened children, Macy’s commissioned Sarg to replace them. Ever innovative, Sarg eventually utilized rubberized silk and helium to create larger, lighter balloons that could be controlled from below. Sweet’s charming mixed-media layouts form a playful bridge between her creative process and Sarg’s. She fashioned whimsical toys from painted blocks, buttons and fabric, combining them in photo-collages with old books, cut paper, imagined sketches for Sarg’s projects, watercolor images of parade scenes and much more. Endpapers inform and delight, too, with excerpts from a 1929 book about Sarg's marionettes and a front-page parade invitation in the 1933 New York Times. Backmatter is also a collage of treats, with an author’s note appending further biographical details and comments about the art. 

This clever marriage of information and illustration soars high. (bibliography of adult sources, quote sources, acknowledgements, period photo) (Picture book/biography. 4-8)

(2011). [Review of the book Balloons over Broadway: The True story of the puppeteer of Macy’s Parade, by Melissa Sweet]. Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/melissa-sweet/balloons-over-broadway/

Idea for use in a library

This book would be a good addition to a display about Thanksgiving. It would be good to include this since it is related to Thanksgiving, but different from the typical historical books that would be part of a Thanksgiving collection.