Balloons Over Broadway

When my daughter was growing up, we lived a hop, skip, and a jump from the Museum of Natural History. That was great just in itself, but it also meant that every Thanksgiving we were at the starting point for the Macy's parade. My daughter was less than a week old when I bundled her up and took her to the parade. She spent the entire time gazing at my face, but still I felt like a real parent for the first time. As she grew, we usually skipped the parade. It was soooo crowded that we watched it on TV. But we still had our traditions. On Wednesday night we'd go to the museum grounds, where workers would be blowing up the balloons for the big day. It was fun to wander up and down the streets and see our favorites as they filled with helium and magically came to life. Of course, eventually word got out and that too became soooo crowded.

Balloons Over Broadway takes me back to those days. This amazing picture book tells the story of how Tony Sarg, a puppeteer, came to invent the gigantic balloons that are the hallmark of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Like many icons, the balloons just always seemed to exist, so kudos to Melissa Sweet for unearthing how they developed from blimp-like rubber balloons carried on wooden sticks to the soaring helium-filled wonders of today.

Melissa Sweet, a Caldecott Honor winner, obviously threw herself into this book. The artwork, a combination of watercolor illustrations and collages made from found objects, fabrics, and handmade puppets, exude the creativity and love of play that Sarg devoted his life to. In an authors note, Sweet tells us that she "played with all sorts of materials, not knowing exactly what the outcome would be." The end result shows that it was time well spent.

The book concludes with additional info about Tony Sarg, as well as a bibliography. The back end papers feature a 1933 advertisement from the New York Times, touting the upcoming parade. Among the "helium filled monsters" is one I would give anything to see: "The Colicky Kid: Listen to him squall!! He's mad. He's bad. He yowls bloody murder!"

And head on over to Sweet's website to view her Balloons Over Broadway activity kit. It has fun templates of puppets for kids (or anybody) to make.

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade
by Melissa Sweet
Houghton Mifflin, 40 pages
Published: November 2011

Bone Dog

One of the rules I live by is not to read anything in which a dog dies, and that includes picture books. I made an exception for Bone Dog, by Caldecott medalist Eric Rohmann. Ella, an old dog, tells Gus, the boy who loves her, that she won't be around much longer. "But no matter what happens, I'll always be with you," she promises. How Ella keeps her promise is the charm behind this picture book, perfect for Halloween, or any old day.

 Although the book might be scary for some young readers (a skeleton crew ambushes Gus in a cemetery), on the whole humor dominates, as when the skeletons tell Gus, "You've got guts kid...but not for long." And the ending message, that a dog's loyalty knows no bounds, is ultimately reassuring. Rohmann's signature style of dark outlines underscores the dramatic cemetery setting and is guaranteed to send shivers up readers' spines. Don't wait for Halloween for this one, check it out now.

Bone Dog
by Eric Rohmann
Roaring Brook Press, 32 pages
Published: July, 2011

Otto: The Autobiography of a Teddy Bear

"No one, I dare say, no one was as original."
--Maurice Sendak

"He never lost the feeling of how a child sees the world. And a child's view is not really sentimental."
--Burton Pike, professor of comparative literature at CUNY

"The most famous children's book author you have never heard of."
--Phaidon Press

Who do the above quotes refer to? None other than Tomi Ungerer, one of my all-time favorite authors. I was an Ungerer fan as a child, poring over my tattered copies of The Three Robbers and Emile again and again. As an adult I came across The Beast of Monsieur Racine and fell in love with this exuberant story about a retired tax collector whose life is changed forever when he finds two young friends where he least expected. Read the book. It's one of my top 10 favorite picture books.

Many of Ungerer's books are now out of print. (One reason he fell out of favor here was his not-so-secret hobby of erotica.) Luckily, Phaidon Press is in the process of reprinting 26 of his titles. The latest is Otto: The Autobiography of a Teddy Bear. Originally published in German in 1999, the picture book tackles a disturbing subject, World War II. Like all of Ungerer's work, the book doesn't shy away from the gory realities of war and what happens to soldiers and to civilians, children included.

Otto, the teddy bear of the title, tells the story of his life, beginning with his creation in a toy workshop in Germany in the 1930s. Not one to shun unpleasant truths, Otto admits that being stitched together "was quite painful." Given as a birthday present to David, a young Jewish boy, Otto spends blissful day playing with the boy and his best friend, Oskar, who is not Jewish. Then things begin to change. David must wear a yellow star on his jacket. Next he and his family are taken away. In a moving illustration, David hands over Otto to Oskar for safekeeping. Interestingly, Oskar is the one who looks upset and is crying, not David.

During wartime, Oskar's building is bombed and Otto is sent flying. Again, the illustration of the carnage, with the bodies of dead soldiers, is unsparing. He's picked up by an American soldier, thereby saving the soldier's life when a bullet hits them both. (Quibble: Could a stuffed teddy bear be enough of a buffer?) The soldier takes Otto home and gives him to his daughter. Loved again, Otto enjoys being pampered until he's snatched from the girl's arms by "three nasty boys" and finally ends up in a trash can. An old woman rescues him and bring him to an antique shop, where he stays in the window for many years. One rainy night, an old man spots him. Yes, dear reader, it's David, the original owner, who survived the war (although his parents didn't). David takes him home, and the story is written up in the newspaper, which leads to Oskar (another survivor) contacting David, and the three friends are reunited.

Despite the involved plot, the text for Otto is relatively straightforward, although there are a few vocabulary words to chew on, such as "indelible," "charred rubble," and "mascot." Would a Level 3 reader be able to get through the book by herself. Yes. Should she? No. A trusted adult's presence is strongly recommended, as a child is bound to have many questions. The illustrations, as with all of Ungerer's work, are amazing. Done in soft watercolors, they can be playful (as when David and Oskar dress Otto as a ghost and dangle him in front of a neighbor's window), touching (Oskar saying goodbye to his father as he heads off to war), and graphic (the wounded American soldier clutching Otto to his chest to staunch the flow of blood). Even Otto's expression subtly change each time he undergoes another reversal of fortune. I highly recommend this book, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of Tomi Ungerer's work reissued by Phaidon.
 

Otto: The Autobiography of a Teddy Bear
by Tomi Ungerer
Phaidon Press, 36 pages
Published: September, 2010

Santa Cow Cheer

All families have their holiday traditions. Some bake cookies or assemble a gingerbread house, others tune in to Merry Christmas Charlie Brown or go caroling. In mine, come Christmas Eve, we watch Mr. Magoo's A Christmas Carol (a surprisingly good adaptation with a stellar performance by Mr. Magoo as Scrooge) and read Santa Cows, a hilarious parody of Clement C. Moore's "A Visit from Saint Nicholas."

First published in 1991, Santa Cows by Cooper Edens starts with the children nestled not in their beds but in front of three TV sets and chowing down on pizza, soda, popcorn, and chips. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, mom and dad (Elwood) are eating microwaved meals of clamcakes and chopped eels.

"When all of a sudden, not the sound of reindeers,

But the mooing of Santa Cows came to our ears.

So we ran to the windows and opened the shutters.

We threw up the blinds to a sky full of udders."

"As lovely as angels," the family agreed,

And Elwood, so helpful, named each by its breed:

"Look kiddies, a Holstein, a Brown Swiss, a Jersey,

And here comes a Hereford, an Angus, a Guernsey."

The Santa cows come down the chimney and float around the living room before serenading the family with carols and presenting them with a fully decorated tree and sacks filled with presents of baseballs, bats, gloves, and caps. The group, cows included, then head outdoors to play an impromptu game of baseball in the moonlight. Top that, Clement C. Moore!

Daniel Lane's soft and fuzzy watercolor illustrations capture the warm holiday glow as well as the cows' gentleness: "Their eyes, like Liz Taylor's, were dewy and clear. Their lips, like Liz Taylor's, so rosy and dear." The many kitschy details that fill the duplex, like the Charlie the Tuna lamp that sits atop a TV set, are worth the price of the book, no longer, alas, in print. Check your local library or order a used copy from Amazon, and make this offbeat picture book the start of your holiday tradition.