The Blue Balloon

Mick Inkpen
A boy and his dog, Kipper, find an ordinary-looking blue balloon with extraordinary powers. By folding out the pages, readers can make the balloon grow, change color, and carry the boy and Kipper high into the universe
This is the current favourite bed time story in our house for both my 2 yr old and my 4 yr old. It makes sharing a bedtime story so much easier when you stumble across books they both adore!

Lots of children love balloons and this definitely appeals to that fascination. The story is simple, a boy finds a balloon and it turns out to be an extraordinary, indestructible and very thrilling. This balloon can change shape, size, colour and even better, it doesn’t pop. It will even fly you to the moon.
This is all made more exciting by the different bits to pull or open out in the pictures. The enormous balloon has a page that opens out 4 times the size of the others. When the balloon is stretched a part of the page ‘stretches’ too, and so it goes on.
Verdict: The girls love the story and the pictures. It is a great book.
And for anyone interested in useless bits of information; this is also the story in which Kipper (the dog) makes his first appearance before going on to have his own series of books
Reviewed by Helen