Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 21:44:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Larry Moss To: Balloon Twister List Subject: Book Review: WAY Cool Holiday Balloons WAY Cool Holiday Balloons by Harry ``Wally'' Walmsley, Arlene ``Arleenie'' Powers, and Yvonne ``Yummy'' Brogdon. WAY Cool Holiday Balloons Holiday creations for the same audience as the other WAY Cool books. Includes definition of twists, eyes, swan centerpiece, shamrock, EZ Easter Bunny, Eggstraordinary Easter Bunny, Mama Bear and Baby Bear, WAY Awesome Blossom, Wally's Ghost, Jack O'Lantern, Totally Tantalizing Turkey, Snowman, EZ 1-Balloon (Almost) Rudolph, Baby Beenie's Christmas Tree. This book also features clip art of all of the figures found in the book. 71 pages, 8.5 x 11 inches, comb bound. $10. What can you say about a new book in a series? The authors haven't changed. The style of writing hasn't changed. The style of the artwork hasn't changed either. If you liked the first two books by these folks and you've been hanging on the edge of your seat waiting for more corny jokes to go with some unusual balloon figures, you'll enjoy this book too. As with the other books, WAY Cool Holiday Balloons starts with illustrated descriptions of all the basic twists used throughout the book. I'm not sure that's really necessary since this isn't likely to be the first balloon book someone will buy, especially with the claim on the front cover that it's for "intermediate to advanced twisters." At least only a few pages are dedicated to that, and there's certainly no harm done ensuring that all readers know what they're talking about in other parts of the book. Not all of these figures are for specific holidays. The blossom can certainly be used year round. The shamrock can be done in a color other than green, and it can be used as a flower. The Easter Bunny can be any other bunny any time other than Easter. Similar to WAY Cool Hats, I think they're limiting the usefulness of the figures in the book by the title alone. The drawings are clear. The text is fairly easy to follow if you have some experience twisting balloons. Nothing in it is especially hard to do or time consuming. This book is not for someone that wants to carry only 260s or to use only one balloon per sculpture. GEO Blossoms and round balloons are used in a couple of places. Hearts are used extensively. This is the largest of their books so far. It has a new feature that the others didn't have. There are a couple pages of clip art in the back of this book showing the new figures. If you use a menu board you can clip and color the clip art to add to your menu board. This is not a general book about twisting with gobs of new wisdom on entertaining with the figures you create (although there are a number of one-liners that you can use). It focuses only on teaching you some new sculptures, and does that well. The sculptures are not meant to be museum quality replicas of living creatures. They are figures that look good and are very useable in a walk-around situation.