The Balloon Sailors

by Diane Swanson

Book Overview

Based on true events from the time of the Berlin Wall. When King Frack and King Frick divide their kingdom with a tall wall, Tamala and her brother send balloon messages over the wall to their beloved... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Library Binding
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1550378090
• ISBN13: 9781550378092
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Annick Press
• Length: 24 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.7" x 9.9"
• Age Range: 7 to 9 years
• Grade Range: Grades 2 to 4

Customer Reviews

Not so fantastical!

This story seemed utterly fantastical to me-then I read that it was based on a true incident! (I know, I know -"Truth is often stranger than fiction.") King Frick and King Frack have each inherited half the kingdom. They build a great stone wall that slices it in two. No one may cross the wall. Unfortunately it divides families from their relatives-in this story, little Tamala and Abalon and parents from Grandma and cousin Peter. The family sews together a huge balloon, attaching it to a basket outfitted with a gas burner. One night they take off in their hot-air balloon, and sail over the wall, even while soldiers below attempt to shoot them down. They are reunited with their relatives. The story is based on the wall constructed in 1961 to divide Berlin in two. In 1979, two East German families sewed a balloon four stories tall and sailed over the wall. (In 1989, the wall came down.) "The Balloon Sailors" illustrates the bizarre circumstances that ideology and politics can visit upon citizens, and how some use great imagination and perseverance to overcome the barriers imposed upon them. The heart-felt illustrations evoke folktales of old, depicting simple village folk and stereotypical kings.