Product Description

Ten years after it was first published, "The Blue Balloon" is now a celebrated classic which continues to delight millions of children, taking pride of place on their bookshelves. It is a story to be treasured, loved, enjoyed time and time again - and passed on to a whole new generation of children. This is a beautiful new paperback and tape anniversary pack. It has been read by Dawn French.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1567641 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-20
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio Cassette
• 32 pages

From Publishers Weekly
It's certainly true that children love balloons, and the balloon in this captivating fantasy is an exceptional one indeed. It looks like an ordinary, soggy blue balloon when the family dog finds it in the garden, but the boy soon finds out that it has "Strange and Wonderful Powers." This balloon is indestructible: it refuses to pop, even when squeezed, squashed and whacked with a stick. It disappears and comes back shaped like a square; it even takes the boy "for a fly" to another planet. Readers will delight in discovering that the book, like the balloon, has some special features: several pages fold out (and/or up), enabling the balloon to grow and stretch into various shapes. Both boy and dog have wonderfully expressive faces as they react to the balloon's extraordinary feats. Inkpen has created an imaginative, beautifully produced book. Ages 3-8.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
PreS --This British import offers clean, uncluttered graphics joined with a simple story segmented into one or two sentences per double-page spread. The young child, whose antics readers follow, is reminiscent of an Oxenbury child, and the occasional expanded and unusual fold-out pages will no doubt add to the book's child appeal. The story, however, is slight indeed. The child's dog finds "a soggy blue balloon" that, once inflated, offers a host of unending magical tricks, including an extraterrestrial excursion that thoroughly entertains the child but that will leave readers flat. Although appealing to look at, this book offers little in the way of originality or substance. The Blue Balloon would do best to sail silently back across the sea from whence it came. --J. J. Votapka, North Bellmore Pub . Lib . , North Bellmore, NY
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ingram
A small boy and his dog find a soggy blue balloon that seems rather ordinary at first glance. But the two soon discover that this balloon has some extraordinary characteristics. Full-color illustrations.

Customer Reviews

Critical Reflection on The Blue Balloon
Stephanie Theo English 385.004 April 10, 2001 Dr. Michelle H. Martin Critical Reflection #2 DiCamillo, Kate. Because of Winn-Dixie. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 2000. Kogan, Lori R., Viney, Wayne. "Reported Strength of Human Animal Bonding and Met Animal Bonding and Method or Acquriring a Dog." Psychological Reports 82 (1998): 647-650. Brown, Brett V. " Single-father family: demographic, economic, and public transfer use characteristics." Marriage and Family Review 29 (2000): 203-221.

In Because of Winn-Dixie, when ten-year-old Opal Buloni, who lives with her father, discovers a stray dog at the local Winn-Dixie grocery store, she never suspects how the dog will change her life. Right away, Opal knows that she can tell Winn-Dixie anything. For example, she tells him that she thinks of her mother a lot, when she can say this to no one else. When Opal was three-years-old, her mother left her and her father. Opal never knew the reason why her mother left them. One day, she asks her father, who says that her mother had a lot of problems, one of which was drinking. An excellent preacher, Opal's father, he has been preaching his entire life. Opal feels that she doesn't have a father because he never tries to make conversation with her. Throughout the book, friendship and family are the two main points focused on. Opal is not abandoned but neglected when she and her father first move to Naomi, Florida. She calls her father as the "preacher" and not "daddy" or "father". She doesn't look at him as a father figure. Throughout the whole book, she keeps saying that when she asks her father a serious question vague, he climbs into his shell like a turtle. Opal asks her father to tell her ten things about her mother since she was to young when she left them and doesn't remember anything about her. One of the things that her father tells her is that her mother loved stories, so from that moment, any story she hears, she remembers so that one day when she sees her mother again, she can sit down with her and tell them to her. Opal finally realizes in the end of the story that she has lost her mother, and now she knows she will never see her again. Religion takes on a large part in this book, the main reason being that her father is a preacher and he brings God into their home. In the article "Marriage & Family Review," Brown comments on single fathers versus married fathers. The article states that, " The analysis shows that single fathers earn less that married fathers, have lower household incomes, are less educated, and are substantially more likely to be receiving public transfers" ( 214). In this story, Opal and her father live in a trailer park. It is a little run down and not suitable for a 10 year-old-girl to be running around in alone. It doesn't appear to be a healthy family environment. However, with her father's job, this is all that he can afford for them to live in since they just moved to a new church and a new state. The church in which he works in is not a real church; it is an old run down convenience store. Once Winn-Dixie moves into their home, things began to change drastically. The relationship between Opal and her father strengthens a great deal. The hope that Opal uses to overcome the absence of her mother and the hope to establish a relationship with her father comes from the animal-child relationship she gains

from Winn-Dixie. In a "Psychological Reports" journal article on animal-child relationships, test showed that participants who had chosen their own animals rather than receiving an animal from someone else scored higher on bonding with their pets than the participants whom had received their pets from another owner. Opal and the preacher realize that with a little help from Winn-Dixie, they've both tasted a bit of melancholy in their lives, and they still have a whole lot to be thankful for. This story will give hope to anyone who has had family separation or loved their dog as much as Opal and her father do. He gives Opal a reason to go on and live even when she feels that no one else is there. Even though she never gets reunited with her mother and receives the love from her that Opal has always dreamed about, she still has Winn-Dixie and her father.

The Blue Balloon
I purchased this book before Kipper became popular. I am a Speech-Language Pathologist and all my clients love the book. It provides for enjoyment even after reading it several times to a child. It's great for language stimulation for verbs, adjectives, locatives, and colors. It has become my favorite book of all time.