And as she was a little girl, of course she was... pink

January 15, 2008 2:58 PM

The Story of Blossom the Brave Balloon.
posted by dersins (12 comments total)

Click each page for the next.
posted by dersins at 2:58 PM on January 15, 2008

(except that if you do that and stop when you get the index page, you'll miss the end of the story. unless they've fixed that when you read this...)
posted by effbot at 3:07 PM on January 15, 2008

Fascinating stuff, thanks.
posted by Snyder at 3:37 PM on January 15, 2008

Ah, that was lovely...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:56 PM on January 15, 2008

This is charming -- though there's a much better children's book by Enid Marx, called Bulgy the Barrage Balloon, published in the same year, 1941. (And apparently there's another one called Boo-Boo the Barrage Balloon (1943), which I haven't seen, in which 'a brave barrage balloon marries another barrage balloon and they produce twin baby barrage balloons'.) Enid Marx is under-represented on the internet (no Wikipedia entry, even), and someone should scan Bulgy the Barrage Balloon and put it online; it's a delightful book, reminiscent of the work of Bawden and Ravilious, who were Marx's fellow-students at the Royal College of Art.
posted by verstegan at 4:15 PM on January 15, 2008

How bizarre! A really sweet story that just happens to have Nazis in it...well, well. THAT was new!

great FPP.
posted by misha at 4:16 PM on January 15, 2008

Blossom's dad might want to rethink his pipe-smoking habit.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:23 PM on January 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

Thank you - that was cool! I remember the barrage balloons clearly enough, but not the books - very cute.
posted by speug at 4:33 PM on January 15, 2008

Loved it; great post. Odd that there was a knot-tying lesson sitting in the middle of a nazi vs. balloon story. hmm.
posted by heyho at 4:40 PM on January 15, 2008

That was cool, although they left out the part where she went to work for a tyre company after the war.
posted by TedW at 6:09 PM on January 15, 2008

If you didn't know the context, "red tubes for breakfast" sounds like early morning Internet porn, and "silver tubes for supper" sounds like inhaling nitrous oxide from Whippets.
posted by Tube at 6:54 PM on January 15, 2008

Awww, cute illustrations. And now I'll be calling everyone "horrid" all day.

Funny coincidence - when I eat a diet of chocolate ice cream, toffee and meringues, I turn into a balloon too!
posted by madamjujujive at 11:26 AM on January 16, 2008