The Horn Book Guide

YOUNGER FICTION

Weitzman, Jacqueline Preiss

You Can't Take a Balloon into the National Gallery

36 pp. | Dial | May, 2000 | Trade ISBN 0-8037-2303-2 $$16.99

(2) 1-3 Illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. In this wordless book, a young girl leaves her balloon outside the museum before exploring the treasures within. The accidentally loosed balloon introduces the nation's capital in a series of riotous scenes, as in You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum. The deftly handled execution has culture seekers inside the museum studying works of art whose motifs are repeated in the scenes outside, to great comic effect.

Reviewer: Mary M. Burns | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2000