Back to childhood: The Twenty One Balloons
The Twenty One Balloons is a fascinating work of fiction by renowned French American author and illustrator William Pene Du Bois. I’ve read the book five or six times and it always leaves me with a smile on my face, feeling several decades younger, as if I’ve been on an exhilarating, action-packed journey, free of the ties of the modern age.
Reading The Twenty One Balloons offers a delightful kind of escapism rarely found in fiction both accessible to children and adults. It’s fantastical and endearing tale of William Waterman Sherman—a retired school-teacher who’s new-found dream is to float completely undisturbed in a hot air balloon for one whole year and whose dream ends somewhat abruptly with him crash-landing on the volcanic island of Krakatoa and becoming stranded there for some time—always makes me think of being a boy and running free in the woods: times gone by when anything was possible and worth doing just for the hell of it. Making things with no sure hope of the outcome and no particular care to that way of thinking.
It’s the language in the book that does it for me—always simplistic, but never less than absolutely accurate—as well as the fine illustrations, which thoroughly document William Waterman Sherman’s many varied and hilarious mishaps; the book is short for a novel at less than several hundred pages, but proves that a good story is a good story, regardless of how long it takes to tell it.
For me, The Twenty One Balloons is one of the few literary gems which has it all—glorious illustrations, fantastic dialogue, intriguing human interaction—and never gets boring. Any first time author who is struggling with their word count and unsure of the merits of a short book should read it at once and become immediately inspired.
Jayne’s surprise pre-wedding weekend: I think I know what we should put together. We should book some val thorens accommodation as a surprise.