Professor William Waterman Sherman may have intended to fly across the Pacific Ocean – but it is almost immediately obvious that fate has other plans for him. When he is discovered by a steamship, it is not in a massive balloon but amidst the wreckage of twenty deflated gas balloons; and neither is Prof. Sherman in the Pacific, instead he is in the North Atlantic ocean. You can imagine, how, when this news reaches the cities, everyone is pretty excited, and very eager to meet the great adventurer.

Sherman's giant balloon had already generated quite a bit of talk (his basket alone, they said, was as big as a house!)But it takes several days' rest and a hero's welcome, before the professor is ready to recount his journey to a captivated audience...And it turns out to be a weird and wonderful story, indeed.

In the beginning, the professor's flight was largely uneventful. Uneventful, that is, until he had an unfortunate accident involving a seagull. Needless to say, he crashed. Luckily for him, he had found inhabited land – the volcanic island of Krakatoa. Sherman is amazed to discover that the island is populated by no less than 20 families. Even stranger is their extraordinary wealth. With all the money and supplies they could ever need, the families live exceedingly comfortable lives; they even have their own restaurants, calendars and bumper cars.

But all is not well with the island itself. The volcano that lies under Krakatoa is restless, and just about ready to explode. What will the islanders do? Can they survive one of the biggest eruptions of all time? Read the book to find out.

From the book:

"The Western American Explorer's Club in the city of San Francisco, was honoured as it had never been honoured before in the first week of October 1883 by being promised to be the first to hear the details of an unexplained, extraordinary adventure; the biggest news story of the year, the story the whole world was waiting impatiently to hear – the tale of Professor William Waterman Sherman's
singular voyage.

Professor Sherman had left San Francisco on August 15. He flew off in a Giant Balloon, telling reporters that he hoped to fly across the Pacific Ocean. Three weeks later he was picked up in the Atlantic Ocean half starved and exhausted, clinging to the debris of twenty deflated balloons."

Age Group: 10 +
Title: The Twenty-One Balloons
Written and Illustrated by:
William Pene Dubois
Price: Rs. 300/-
Winner of : Newbery Medal for excellencein American children's literature