Balloons Over Broadway:

The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade

Sweet, Melissa. ( 2011). Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.

This true story tells the creation of the famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  The story begins with the life of Tony Sarg, a puppeteer that Macy's hired to create window displays during the holidays.  Mr. Sarg creates mechanical marionettes for  "Macy's Wondertown", which becomes a big hit.  Then Macy's wants to start a parade for their employees during the holidays.  Mr. Sarg is hired to help and gets to work creating costumes and floats.  The  parade grew each year and became more popular.  Mr. Sarg  began to create balloons for the parade and recreated his designs to make them easily seen by the crowd.  He created  the helium filled balloons that has been a tradition of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that still delights spectators today.

This book uses a variety of mediums to create the illustrations and pictures.  The author uses cartoon-like illustrations, cut out letters, sketches, and photos.  For the end pages, she uses a photo of a book about Tony Sarg and newspaper print advertising Macy's parade.  This informational book tells interesting facts of Tony Sang's work in helping to create the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Children that enjoy historical facts, events, and people will enjoy this book.