By Mary Ellen Day, Special Writer
It was really colorful at the Manville Public Library last week as the community room was turned into a mini balloon fest.
Goowin’s Balloonwins took over the room for 45 minutes, and the audience loved it.
Balloon artist Allynn Gooen created as he told stories of "Snow White and the Eight Dwarfs" and "The Three Pigs," which children from the audience starred in.
Mr. Gooen used the balloons to turn the children into creatures from the stories.
He began more than 35 years ago doing puppets and making balloon animals for kids.
"The balloons are the puppets, and the kids are the costumes," Mr. Gooen said. "I blew up the balloon house, started making costumes, and, suddenly, all the costumes sense the props balloons. Then we need volunteers. The kids are in charge. I’m not."
Traveling all over the world making his balloons, Mr. Gooen has become popular with children and adults. He has done balloon shows as far away as Australia and Mumbai, India, doing private parties of 40 and shows of 2,500.
He started in the late 1970s after being a teacher and professor at many New Jersey colleges. Mr. Gooen used balloons in his college classes, then was told it did not look good.
He was unhappy because he could not make his balloons and, according to him, "went cold turkey."
He went into his supervisor’s office and told him he could not do it anymore. Mr. Gooen was a speech, theater and broadcasting teacher.
"You can’t make a living doing balloons" his supervisor said, but Mr. Gooen definitely has.
"The fun of that is you do the balloon stuff, and I am a ’60s-type person, and the happening is what I am looking for," Mr. Gooen said."It was fun because it was made of special balloons, and it was hard to do it by yourself," Pawel Zambrzycki said of the performance at the library.
"I thought that it was great. The library is finally doing some good activities for kids," resident Liz Eckert said.
She brought her two sons, ages 22 months and 3 years old.
Grace Perun attends a lot of the library functions, and she said she liked this.
"It was fun to see all the other kids doing the balloon acting with the balloons," she said, adding she never saw anything like that before.
Ruth Bielanski, the children’s librarian, was very impressed.
"This was a children’s event to showcase the summer reading program and the events that we are having here in Manville," Ms. Bielanski said. "I do believe the children enjoyed it as much we all did."
For more information about other programs offered at the Manville Public Library, visit the library, check the website at www.somerset.lib.nj.us/manville.htm or call 908-722-9722.

