The 21 Balloons by William Pene Du Bois was a favorite book at my house growing up in the 80s. When I was cleaning out and donating old childhood books this is one of the few that I kept. I now have it at my house and recently reread it at the suggestion of a child.
I was sitting at the first grade tables reading about volcanoes to a troubled first grader. Nothing seemed to interest this kid- except maybe nonfiction science. That day, it was a book about the island of Krakatoa. When this island exploded in 1883 it was the loudest explosion on record. Before reading this National Geographic children’s book about volcanoes I had not realized there really was an island called Krakatoa or that it actually exploded in real life. But I immediately remembered The 21 Balloons and when I got home that night I pulled it out a reread it. The short-term assignment at that school ended- but I made sure to send along the link to this book in the hopes that the troubled first grader might find a moment of entertainment related to his interest in volcanoes. I hope he got to read it with an adult.
The book begins with Professor William Waterman Sherman, recently retired from teaching, preparing and then executing a trip in a basket house held by a hot air balloon. Sherman has packed food and other supplies to last a year and hopes to spend that time relaxing and loafing in his ethereal surroundings. And for the first week of his trip that is exactly what he does until a seagull fight pops his balloon and he is forced to cut off his basket house into the ocean and make an emergency landing on the island of Krakatoa. While he initially finds no one and believes he has found an uninhabited island, he is surprised to be greeted by a well-dressed gentleman who shows him the hidden society of the island of Krakatoa. A small civilization has been built around the wealth of a huge diamond mine on the island. With the diamonds, the citizens of Krakatoa have built houses and a society based on rotating restaurants of different ethnic identities. Their entertainment revolves around balloon merry go rounds and the undulations of the earth as the famous Krakatoa volcano is preparing to explode. Of which it does during the first week of Professor Sherman’s stay- so soon that they haven’t sewn him a parachute to use on their emergency evacuation contraption designed for a quick get away in the event of an explosion. This is why he is found on a platform of 20 balloons floating in the Atlantic Ocean alone- everybody else jumped off in their parachute on land while he was forced to crash the platform in the ocean and hope for rescue.
And rescued he was- and taken to the Western American Explorer’s Club in San Francisco to tell his story in front of a huge crowd- it is this story that comprises the majority of the book.
I am even more in awe of this book now that I know the part about the volcano is actually true.
