The Twenty-One Balloons

William Pène du Bois


Professor William Waterman Sherman, a disillusioned schoolteacher, sails in a giant balloon over the Pacific, lands on the island of Krakatoa, and witnesses a stupendous explosion in which that notorious island blows up. When Professor Sherman is found adrift in the Atlantic clinging to the debris of twenty balloons, all America rocks with curiosity. Much of the story is based on complete truth-scientific principles behind nineteenth-century balloon inventions and the history of the amazing civilization found on Krakatoa. The rest, agrees the author, is absolute nonsense.

1948 Newbery Honor Books:

Pancakes-Paris (Claire Huchet Bishop)
Li Lun, Lad of Courage (Carolyn Treffinger)
The Quaint and Curious Quest of Johnny Longfoot the Shoe King's Son (Catherine Besterman)
The Cow-Tail Switch, and Other West African Stories (Harold Courlander)
Misty of Chincoteague (Marguerite Henry)


Last updated: December 2003

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