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Title: Where Do Balloons Go? An Uplifting Mystery by Jamie Lee Curtis, Laura Cornell ISBN: 0-06-027980-X Publisher: Harpercollins Juvenile Books Pub. Date: 29 August, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.71 (24 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Wonderful, Colorful Book
Comment: That dynamic duo, Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell ponder the age-old question, Where Do Balloons Go?, in their fourth collaboration of the same name. Written in rhyme, Curtis' gentle, witty, imaginative story will delight and amuse children of all ages as they explore the possibilities of what might happen when you let go of a balloon. "Do they tango with airplanes? Or cha-cha with birds? Can plain balloons read balloons printed with words?" Cornell's busy, expressive illustrations add just the right touch to this wonderful story and will keep youngsters entranced reading after reading as they find new hidden pictures and scenes. This is a real gem of a book, the whole family will enjoy, that is sure to become a classic in years to come.
Rating: 5
Summary: Fun, Open-Ended, Imaginative Speculations!
Comment: This book clearly deserves more than five stars!
Most good children's books have a primary story line that entertains the children, and brings home an important lesson. The outstanding children's books manage to combine more than one lesson. The great children's books appeal to adults as much as to children. The classic children's books take children and adults to places, thoughts, and lessons that they would never otherwise have considered. Where Do Balloons Go? has all of the elements of a classic children's book, with some novel improvements in combining text and illustrations to expand your imagination.
Where Do Balloons Go? begins with this query:
"Where do balloons go when you let them go free?
It can happen by accident. It's happened to me."
Now, if you are like me, you assume that the helium-filled balloons are carried high into the air until they either develop a hole and burst or explode from the expansion of the helium into the near-vacuum around the balloon. Not very exciting as alternative thoughts, are they? That dead-end in your mind, though, sets you up for the wonderful, mind-expanding speculations in this interesting book.
"Are they always alone? Do they ever meet up in pairs?
Do they ever get married and make balloon heirs?"
To fully appreciate this set of questions, you have to imagine the illustrations that complement the queries. Balloons are dining in a restaurant, having a romantic time. Using that illustrative vision to launch into the idea of balloon "heirs" (pun obviously intended for "airs") is hilarious. I just loved it.
The illustrations are done in vibrant colors, emphasizing lots of purples, that create a play with the text and vice versa as the above example shows to greatly expand the meaning of the book.
For a further example, the text says that balloons are
" . . . always concerned that they'll POP --
maybe caught up in wires
pushed by the breeze . . . or tangled in trees . . . . "
The corresponding illustration emphasizes professional human balloon detanglers with advertisements and all kinds of specialized gear untangling balloons from trees. The illustrations have a Richard Scarry-type appearance combined with a New Yorker-style sophistication that effortlessly engage these illustrations to nicely bridge the gap between children and adults, without excluding either side of the audience. In this sequence, you have an additional reversal in that people are serving the balloons, rather than our usual conception of the object serving the person. Without this illustration for the text, that final visual play on the verbal concept would not have been possible.
A standard technique for children's books is just to anthromorphize the objects. This book goes well beyond that. First, different types of anthromophization are employed (as objects with senses "twisted by clowns" as well as self-animate objects "Do they tango with airplanes?"). The balloons are also made into creatures with animal-like qualities ("Or cha-cha with birds?") and spiritual beings (with a relationship to the stars).
You will have to read the book to appreciate its full power. Along the way, you will be exposed to concepts that explore balloon communication methods, how balloons relax, benefits achieved by floating away, activities they pursue unseen in the sky, and the mental perceptions of the balloons as all this occurs. In one nice surprise, there's an enormous fold-out illustration. At the end, you also have stickers that your child can put on the book or anywhere else that she or he wants to.
The ending is brilliantly done, in closing the seemingly open-ended circle of the questions and the action. You will appreciate the way the ending connects parent and child in a particularly nice way.
After you have enjoyed the mind-expanding, humorous, and versatile perspectives in this book, I suggest that you take another question to which there is a scientific answer available, and build your own set of speculations and interactions. In the process, you and your child can create the story together . . . along with your own illustrations. If you cannot think of any other question, I suggest "Why does popcorn pop?" as a starting point. The punny potential of that question could even take you beyond the heights reached in Where Do Balloons Go?
Reach mentally for the stars and grab the physical and emotional closeness that rewards both you and your child!
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Book!
Comment: It amazes me how many talents Jamie Lee Curtis has! This is an absolutely great book and my daughter and I have read it so many times I remember it by heart! "Where do balloons go when you let them go free? It can happen by accident, it's happened to me!":o)
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Title: Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis, Laura Cornell ISBN: 0060245603 Publisher: Joanna Cotler Pub. Date: 23 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: I'm Gonna Like Me : Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem by Jamie Lee Curtis, Laura Cornell ISBN: 0060287616 Publisher: Joanna Cotler Pub. Date: 17 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
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Title: When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old's Memoir of Her Youth by Jamie Lee Curtis, Laura Cornell ISBN: 0060210788 Publisher: Joanna Cotler Pub. Date: 30 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis, Laura Cornell ISBN: 006024528X Publisher: Joanna Cotler Pub. Date: 30 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: When Sophie Gets Angry- Really, Really Angry... (Caldecott Honor Books, 2000) by Molly Garrett Bang ISBN: 0590189794 Publisher: Scholastic Pub. Date: March, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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