I found my attention waning and wandering a lot as I read this whimsical fantasy about the 1883 volcanic explosion of Krakatoa. Maybe it's because the light, comical handling of that event seemed tasteless in the wake of last week's disaster in Japan (since, you know, the explosion of Krakatoa actually did cause tsunamis that killed thousands of people). Or maybe it was the lack of any real character development or a truly captivating plot.
The Twenty-One Balloons just isn't that type of book. But it is short, and there are lots of pictures (drawn by du Bois himself).
Basically it's a fanciful narrative told by Professor William Waterman Sherman, a retired schoolteacher who wants to get away from the bustle and bother of the world for a while by taking a nice, slow trip around the world in his hot-air balloon. He designs quite an elaborate little basket "house" for maximum comfort on his journey (and goes into quite a bit of detail describing all its attributes). Alas, he's only aloft for a few days when a seagull rips a big hole in his balloon, all his possessions fall into the sea, and he crash-lands on Krakatoa. Turns out the island is secretly inhabited by refined, English-speaking people in impeccably clean pastel clothing.
For a minute I really thought the book was going to turn into an 1880s version of that weird late-sixties TV show The Prisoner, but no. Instead there are lots and lots of descriptions of Krakatoan inventions and contraptions--complete with many Rube Goldberg-ish illustrations. And then the island blows up. Balloons, of course, save the day (at least for Sherman and the Krakatoans).
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