There is a new children’s book about Tony Sarg, master puppeteer and inventor of the first balloons for New York’s Macy Day Parade. Sarg was also the creator of Tony Sarg’s Treasure Book – an early “mechanical book” with sliding illustrations and removable pieces. The Alice in Wonderland chapter, demonstrated in the video below, is clearly an important ancestor of last year’s interactive e-book for iPad.
Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade, written and illustrated by Melissa Sweet, is published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children and priced at $11.55.