Review by Booklist Review
A little girl becomes attached to a special large, yellow balloon, proclaiming it "my friend, Loonie." In the tradition of invisible companions, Loonie sits at the dinner table and hears a bedtime story along with the girl. Everything is more fun with Loonie--singing, dancing, and even neighborhood walks--until the inevitable happens, with the girl losing her hold on the string and Loonie floating away. Her parents (called only "parents" but depicted, perhaps, as two moms) try to distract her with gardening, but the girl is inconsolable. Lonely, gray days pass, until eventually the girl notices that one of the flowers her family planted is blooming. Its yellow blossoms remind her of Loonie! When she is able to think of Loonie with happy memories, she begins to notice its bright yellow color in the world around her. Mixed-media illustrations employ changing tones to emphasize the girl's feelings. While the loss of a balloon may seem trivial to some people experiencing grief, the story expresses emotion in a way that children may recognize and understand.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A big, bright yellow balloon represents beats of friendship and mourning in LaCour's tender, well-paced tale. From the moment a girl's parents, a queer- presenting couple, bring the balloon home, "Loonie" floats easily into her heart and daily routines: "She set a place for Loonie at the dinner table and made sure Loonie saw all the pages of their bedtime story." The child loves the bobbing object, dancing with it and taking it on walks until Loonie breaks away, growing "smaller and smaller in the sky." The girl's parents invite her to channel her sadness into gardening, which soon bears colorful fruit that brings warm memories of Loonie flooding back, along with a new joy at seeing "yellow in places she'd never noticed before." The pages capture the very real emotional weight that children can attach to inanimate objects in this gentle introduction to loss. The family is portrayed with light skin. Ages 4--8. (Mar.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Loss is loss, no matter how buoyant the friend. When her parents come home one day with a gloriously gargantuan yellow balloon, their little girl knows instantly that she has found a friend. Over the next few days, she and Loonie (as she names the balloon) do almost everything together: go for walks, observe the squirrels, and dance. All is well until the girl invites her friend to see the garden but neglects to hold onto its string. Her grief is acknowledged and understood by her parents, who help her plant seeds in the ground. But slowly she sees other yellow things, like the flowers she planted, and is able to remember the good times the two had together. By the tale's end, her happiness comes from that remembering--a well-conveyed message that will resonate with readers confronting similar situations. Lindsay's bold, smudgy art makes clever use of color--yellow is a motif throughout, from the signifying brightness of Loonie to the little girl's clothing and other objects in their vicinity. At the end, parents are warned of the dangers of uninflated balloons around small children and the perils they can pose to wildlife. The little girl's parents present as female; all are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Respect for children's sadness and loss is exemplified beautifully in this tactful take on grief and its recovery. (Picture book. 4-7) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
