Balloon

After a bright orange balloon escapes its young owner’s grasp amid a flock of pigeons, the brown-skinned child spies evidence of the orb everywhere. With mere punctuation—an exclamation point, an ellipsis, then a question mark each follow the repeating titular word—Handy (There Was a Shadow) effectively establishes the book’s simple conceit. Drawings by Kwon (I’m Sorry You Got Mad) visualize the bulk of the largely wordless story, aptly conveying hints of the escaped object as its owner glimpses beckoning round, orange objects across New York City. The digitally colored pen-and-ink artwork has a light and sunny quality that helps foreground varied, half-hidden tangerine-hued objects that supply child and reader alike with an opportunity to guess each object before a page-turn reveal. When the protagonist at last spots something that raises their hopes, their eyes go saucer-like, and an abundance of orange objects, from hula hoops to marigolds, fill a spread. Concluding scenes that show the source of excitement offer a tender close that comes full circle with a single line of dialogue—underscoring the book’s subtle emotional arc and sweetly honoring the child’s initial loss. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3–5. (Oct.)