The Twenty-One Balloons
On the anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, I finished reading Krakatoa by Simon Winchester. In the reading list, he mentions a children’s book written in 1948 - The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois.
It tells the story of a maths teacher from San Francisco named William Waterman Sherman who flies in a balloon westwards across the Pacific, crash-landing (after seagulls pecked holes in the silk fabric) on what turns out to be “the Pacific island of Krakatoa”. Here the impeccably dressed locals are all fabulously rich, since the volcano in the island’s centre sits directly on top of an immense diamond mine.
Could make an interesting supplement to a discussion about the tsunami since giant sea waves were the main reason the Krakatoa volcano eruption was so deadly.
Technorati Tags: krakatoa, indonesia, children, kids, books, tsunami
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POSTED IN: Children's Books
3 opinions for The Twenty-One Balloons
Cotton-Pickin’ Days » Blog Archive » Tsunami Writings
Dec 27, 2005 at 1:53 am
[...] The Twenty-One Balloons [...]
samantha
Aug 22, 2008 at 4:32 pm
i loved this book soooooo much its the best book i ever read in my life
Marlena Martinez
Oct 12, 2008 at 6:19 pm
This summary of the book helped me with my upcoming book report.
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