Thursday, October 18, 2012

Emily's Balloon



My Nugget loves this book.  I mean she LOVES IT.  We've had it three times from the library.  The last time we got it, we were walking around looking for something good to check out and she happened to spy this on the shelf.  You should have seen her face light up.  It's the first book she's ever really connected with in that way.  

Emily's Balloon is a very simple book about a little girl who gets a yellow balloon.  She becomes pretty attached to the balloon, but then a gust of wind whisks it away and lands it in a tree.  She has to go to bed without the balloon, but her mother promises to get it down for her in the morning.

There were a few things I liked about the book right away.  The text is very simple and reading it feels peaceful.  It's a great book for before bed.  The illustrations are very abstract, almost blurry, and they are mostly monochromatic so the yellow balloon really stands out.  The book captivated the Nugget from the first reading, and she is generally the type of kid who likes bright, shiny books with flaps and popups and things she can try to rip off, so there must be something good there.  I can't argue with that.  At first I was not a huge fan of this book because I just felt that there wasn't much story there.  But maybe that's what's great about it.  You might remember as a kid developing an unreasonable attachment to a random object, like a balloon or an action figure or a crappy toy from McDonalds.  Sure it was forgotten after a day or two, but for that day or two it was the most important thing in your life.  Emily's Balloon captures that feeling pretty well.  Clearly my Nugget can relate.

1 comment:

  1. What a great start to your blog. I can't wait read more. I'm especially looking forward to your take on books that suck (looking at you, every Dora book ever made).

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