Question:

Who is the speaker of this poem? Provide specific examples from the poem to support your ideas.

Answer:

The speaker of this poem seems to be a little child, probably between the ages of 5 and 8.  Those ages seem appropriate because at that point in life a child is making up their own words such as “puddle-wonderful” and “mud-luscious”. Using words like that also imply a child because they love to play in the dirt and mud whereas older children and adults tend to stay away from shenanigans like that. They also refer to the balloon man three times throughout the poem, and as a child I was always in awe of the balloon man, who had the joy of holding wonderful balloons all day. He comments on his friends, but rushes the pronunciation like a child who speaks much too fast would. There are two examples of this, “eddieandbill” and “bettyandisbel”. Finally the child comments on the games that his friends are playing, such as hop-scotch, jump-rope, marbles and piracies.