Amazon.com Review
Anyone who has ever let go of a balloon string and watched the bright object go up and up and out of sight will appreciate this whimsical picture book that ponders the age-old question
Where Do Balloons Go? This "uplifting mystery"--examined in singsong rhyme by Jamie Lee Curtis and playfully explored with Roz Chast-like illustrations by Laura Cornell--is a new offering from the team behind
Today I Feel Silly,
When I Was Little, and
Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born.
Where do they go
when they float far away?
Do they ever catch cold
and need somewhere to stay?
"Do they tango with airplanes? / Or cha-cha with birds? / Can plain balloons read / balloons printed with words?" Cornell's splashy colorful spreads (one which folds out to four full pages) pop with plenty of witty details. One balloon, for example, waits nervously with a suitcase outside the Bates Motel. In a balloon-ridden urban scenario, advertisements promote balloon-friendly services such as "The Detanglers, professionals since 1934." This exuberant book will have you half-believing that balloons are people, too. A page of vinyl reusable stickers in the back can be used on the sky-and-cloud wash on the front endpaper, or the space-scape (complete with comets) on the back endpaper. Next time your child's balloon drifts away, it'll be much easier for him or her to imagine it dancing in Bolivia than caught up in phone wires! (Ages 4 to 8) --Karin Snelson
From Publishers Weekly
This far-fetched tale by the creators of Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day may well raise youngsters' spirits as verse and art muse fancifully on the possible fates of wayward balloons. Cornell casts the balloons in human roles as the young narrator, a boy who has accidentally let go of his balloon's string, wonders, "Where do they go when they float far away? Do they ever catch cold and need somewhere to stay?" The zany accompanying cartoon pictures show a balloon sitting on the couch in a doctor's waiting room and another approaching a hotel, its string attached to a suitcase. In other scenarios, balloons dine in a restaurant, write postcards home and "cha-cha with birds" on the wing of an airplane, culminating in a four-page fold-out spread of "a big balloon dance." Bursting with color and balloons of all shapes, sizes and functions (many balloons making encore appearances bear clever messages or advertisements), Cornell's busy art provides ample diversion for young readers. Though not as memorable as some of the collaborators' earlier work, this volume, like the high-flying balloon that sets a boy's imagination soaring, is way out thereAin a kid-pleasing way. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
