Title: My Yellow Balloon
Author: Tiffany Papageorge
Illustrator: Erwin Madrid
ISBN: 978-0-9903370-0-3
My Yellow Balloon is a children’s book that serves not only as a nice story sharing the tale of love, loss, and letting go, but also as title to help children understand the many emotions tied into the process of grieving. The complexity of this process can be hard to understand as adults and especially confusing for children.
In this story, a little boy named Joey went with his parents to the carnival. He met a man with balloons and was given a yellow balloon. This balloon went everywhere with Joey.
Then one day the yellow balloon slipped off Joey’s wrist and he wasn’t able to catch it. As the balloon disappeared from sight, so did the color from Joey’s world.
Joey felt angry, sad, confused, in disbelief that his balloon was truly gone. As time went on, the sadness Joey had been feeling become less and less. One day he thought he saw his yellow balloon again, but it was the sun. The sun made him happy and reminded him of the yellow balloon he so dearly treasured.
It’s never easy to lose someone or something loved as an adult or a child. My children lost their grandfather earlier this year. Reviewing My Yellow Balloon gave us a chance to talk again about his passing and I got to see how they were in healing from our loss. It lead into sharing some of our favorite memories with their grandfather. 🙂
The yellow balloon in this story not only represents loss as death. It can mean divorce, illness, moving away, deployment, and more. My Yellow Balloon is beautifully illustrated by Dreamworks artist, Erwin Madrid.
About the Author:
Tiffany Papageorge is an author, speaker, and speaking coach for parents, teachers, and mental health professionals whose mission is to find new ways to reach, capture, and engage children who are dealing with the issue of loss.
Her extensive theater background spans a 25-year period, and includes work with CBS, Disney, and The Sundance Institute. Tiffany holds an MFA from the American Conservatory Theater. She is a member of the Healing Story Alliance, the National Storytelling Network, SCBWI, and SAG-Aftra and has spoken for such prestigious organizations and events as Head Start, The National Alliance of Grieving Children, and throughout Pennsylvania for Children’s Grief Awareness Day, to name a few.
The multi-award-winning My Yellow Balloon is her first picture book and was recently featured on the cover of Foreword Reviews. My Yellow Balloon may be purchased from Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, Booksamillion.com, and through all major booksellers.
Learn more about Papageorge at and My Yellow Balloon at www.myyellowballoon.com and connect onFacebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book to review. No other compensation was received for this post.
