The Yellow Balloon

The Yellow Balloon

Illustrated by, Charlotte Dematons

The Yellow Balloon is a wordless picture book that follows a lost balloon through different locations and times in history. The story begins as the balloon takes flight and passes by different scenes from the sky; birds, airplanes, hot air balloons, etc. It flies past cities, country landscapes, mountains and valleys. We start to see new places like a dessert community with pyramids, African wilderness with homes made from mud and straw, and even oceans with island cultures represented on the page. The illustrator depicts unique events in history for the balloon to travel by, like the collision of the Titanic and social justice problems like deforestation in jungles. Through watercolor painting, the illustrator plays with the light to show the passing of time as the balloon is traveling. This allows us to feel we are apart of the journey.

This would be an excellent choice for any classroom with EL’s. The wordless story takes away a language barrier for the students and allows for us to use our eyes to understand the scenes. There is so much rich detail on each page that students will be intrigued to keep looking for something new. This is truly a great opportunity to allow our students to be critical thinkers. I believe this would be a great story for writing activities. Students could write the story through different viewpoints. I could see one student writing about the perspective of an onlooker as the balloon passes by, or a student could write about the thoughts and feelings of the balloon as it passes by each scene.

I would recommend this book because there is an opportunity for students to look beyond the pictures to critically analyze the illustrations. While there are very typical depictions like hula dancers on the island and mud houses in Africa, this allows students to research and find more information about the images. Students could even recreate the scenes with more reference and understanding of the cultures represented.

Book Video