flew off in a balloon and hoped to cross the Pacific. A few months later, he was found in the Atlantic ocean with twenty balloons. He was near dead when a ship rescued him and nursed him back to health. The captain wanted to know the details of Sherman's adventure, but Sherman stated that he would tell his tale first to his club. In a rather humorous piece of the story, the captain and ship's crew try all kinds of ways to get Sherman to tell them first. They even resort to getting Sherman drunk:

They tried all sorts of ways to get him to tell his story. They tried arguing with, persuading, tricking, and agitating him. They tried to entice him with spirits. They gave him medicine which made him dopey.

Professor Sherman eventually reaches New York, and he begins making plans to get to San Francisco. During this time, the entire country has been whipped into a news frenzy about Sherman and what could have happened. Sherman is being asked and prodded by just about everybody to tell his story, but Sherman keeps denying their requests. Eventually, the president of the United States requests that Sherman tell him, but Sherman politely declines again. Fortunately, the president is understanding and allows Sherman the use of the presidential train to get Sherman to San Francisco as fast as possible:

". . . the Presidential train at your disposal with instructions to clear the lines between New York and San Francisco so that you may get there with all possible speed."

I am so pleased to see that people are still reading this wonderful book, which is one of my all-time favorites. 

Chapter II of The Twenty-One Balloons is entitled "A Hero's Welcome is Prepared."  The chapter recounts all the ways San Francisco, which is Professor Sherman's home town, goes "balloon crazy" (19), and ends with the greatly anticipated arrival of Professor Sherman. 

Everyone wants to be part of the balloon welcome for the Professor, and this leads to incidents both alarming and amusing.  For example, one boy is carried away by balloons and must be rescued by the Fire Department.  All of the balloons are exposed to sparks from houses' chimneys, and they explode, causing great consternation. 

Perhaps the most extraordinary incident involved the cupola of the Western American Explorers' Club.  It is decorated with massive balloons, at the order of the Mayor, and the force of the balloons lifts the cupola from the building, which carry it two hundred miles away, where it lands on an Indian Reservation. The cupola, which is a half-globe of the world, now festooned with balloons, impresses the Indians so much that they designate it the new residence for their Chief.

Since the Professor is recovering from his adventures, the Tomes Aeronautical Studios, which had not been awarded any balloon contracts for the Professor's welcome home, devised an invention in which a carriage would be suspended off the ground by balloon, affording the Professor a smooth and pain-free ride.  They used a large, comfortable couch, raised by balloons, for three horses to pull. Its "dress rehearsal" ended badly, when a spark from Tomes' cigar fell on one of the balloons, it exploded, tumbling Tomes and the other passenger onto the ground, and caused the horses to gallop away with the carriage and balloons.  So, this brilliant idea was abandoned.

While all of the balloon frenzy was happening, a young boy who had recently read Around the World in Eighty Days speculated that Professor Sherman's voyage had carried him around the world in half the time.  This increased the interest in the Professor's voyage and his imminent return to San Francisco.

At the end of the chapter, there were "still nine hundred and twenty-nine balloons" (31) to greet the Professor, the greeting committee is instructed to wear derby hats and polka-dot ties, which are rounded, of course, and carry out the balloon theme.  And the stage is set for the Professor's arrival. 

In Chapter 3 of "Twenty-One Balloons", Professor William Sherman arrives in San Francisco aboard the Presidential train.  He is taken immediately by carriage to the Western American Explorers' Club, where he will at long last reveal the details of his amazing, record-breaking trip around the world in a hot-air balloon.

The audience at the Explorers' Club receives the Professor with enthusiasm, and at one point has to be told to hold their applause so that the Professor can tell his story.  The Professor relates that he had originally undertaken the trip for the purpose of enjoying some solitude.  Having been a "teacher of arithmetic for forty years", he had been ready for some quiet time, and had looked forward "to be(ing) where no one would bother (him) for perhaps one full year".

The Professor had studied the construction of balloons used by other great adventurers, and had come up with a unique design of his own to suit his purposes.  He had wanted his balloon to be big, both in order to "keep (him) in the air for a long time", and to support an extra-large basket in which he could live in comfort.  The Professor carefully calculated the weight of every item to be placed in his balloon house, and after a year, his balloon was made to his specifications.  After a short test flight, the Professor was ready to embark upon his journey.

Although he had notified the press about his planned undertaking, no one had been very interested at that time.  As he sailed up into the air one August day, "only four of (his) closest friends were on hand to see (him) off" (Chapter 3).

In Chapter 4 of The Twenty One Balloons, Professor Sherman sets off on his journey.  He admires his final view of San Francisco and notices the excitement generated by his takeoff.  He immediately begins to enjoy his little house, reading on his porch in the sunshine, washing his laundry and dishes in the ocean at the end of a fishing line.  He exercises by walking around on his porch.  Life is good, with the exception of some smelly garbage, which he throws over the side.  He notices some sea gulls, which worry him a bit, but he knows that his balloon has been made to withstand the claws of birds. 

On the fifth day, he sees a small boat and signals it in Morse Code, but it turns out that the boat is manned by Japanese people, who signal back that they cannot understand English. Professor Sherman is not unhappy about this, because he is enjoying his solitude a great deal.  On the sixth day, all is calm and pleasant, with the exception of the garbage, which is beginning to smell a bit. 

On the seventh day, though, everything falls apart. First Professor Sherman spots a volcanic island, which tells him something is wrong with his calculations, since he had anticipated not seeing any land mass for at least a month.  Then a horde of sea gulls appear.  Professor Sherman makes the mistake of throwing his garbage overboard, believing the gulls would follow it and leave him and balloon alone.  However, while the gulls do chase the garbage as it lands in the sea, one gull retrieves a turkey carcass and takes it to the top of the balloon to enjoy. The other gulls follow him, they fight over the carcass, and suddenly, the skin of the balloon is penetrated and Professor Sherman is descending rapidly.

He knows he cannot land in the sea, where there is little or no hope of his survival. So he determines that he will throw as many unnecessary things as he can overboard, allowing him to maintain sufficient altitude to land on the island.  He proceeds to do this, but the balloon is still descending, and worse, what he has thrown overboard is attracting sharks, who are following his path from the water below.  In desperation, he cuts away his little house, hooks himself to the strings on the balloon, and managing to be dipped only briefly in the water, he lands on the island, dragged there by the balloon. And there, he promptly falls to sleep and the chapter ends.

And his adventures are only beginning.  Keep reading. It gets even more interesting!  

This is one of my favorite books!  In Chapter 4, Professor Sherman is settling into his journey and says "this was a truly enjoyable mode of life" (49).  But the seventh day is "catastrophic" (52). Professor Sherman spies land, which he had hoped to not see for at least a month.  Gulls appear, and  Professor Sherman dumps his garbage overboard to feed the gulls, but a gull retrieves the a turkey carcass and settles on the top of the balloon to eat it. The other gulls fight over the carcass.  One particularly fierce gull puts a hole in the balloon and is caught inside it.  Sherman loses altitude and starts throwing things overboard, hoping he can stay afloat, but finally realizes he will have to try to land on the island.  As though the situation were not terrible enough, he notices that a school of sharks is attracted by the food he has thrown overboard, and if he lands in the water, he will be immediately surrounded by sharks.  After he has thrown every possible item overboard, he disattaches his "house" from the balloon by cutting the strings and holding tight to the strings of the balloon, he is dragged ashore to the beach of a tiny island. He is so exhausted he sleeps and awakes burned by the sand.  That is where we find Professor Sherman as the book ends. 

In Chapter 5, the Professor is awakened by a proper gentleman, Mr. F, who admonishes him to change into the formal attire he is providing, and tells him that he is on the Island of Krakatoa, which the world believes is uninhabited.  In actuality, the citizens have left a fringe of jungle around the beautiful city they have created at the center of the island to preserve the illusion of isolation.  The Professor discovers that, because of its famous volcano, the island is constantly undulating, and that Krakatoa is home to fabulous diamond mines.  Mr. F tells the Professor that, to preserve the secret of the mines, visitors are never allowed to leave.  He assures him however, that as he learns more about the island, he will not want to leave.

In Chapter 6, the Professor learns that the twenty families that inhabit Krakatow have been carefully chosen to make a viable society.  After a period of greed and unrest, the citizens have devised a unique cooperative government based on restaurants - each family is responsible for running a different type of eating place which is open once every twenty days so that the entire population eats out every night at each restaurant on a rotating basis.  Mr. F explains that it is important that the existence of the mines be kept secret, because if word of riches of such magnitude were to get out, it would upset the economic balance of the entire world.

The chapter begins with the Professor being "gently awakened" after four or five hours of sleep. The man insists that the Professor get out of the sun. The Professor has no idea what is happening. He knows that the man isn't a native, and the professor doesn't believe he is a fellow explorer either. It turns out this man is Mr. F, and he confirms for the Professor that he did indeed crash on Krakatoa. Mr. F is excited to know that the Professor believed the island to be uninhabited, because that is by design by the people living on the island.

"This is Krakatoa, all right," he said. "And we who live here are most pleased that the rest of the world is still convinced that Krakatoa is uninhabited. Hurry up, put on your clothes."

Mr. F is quite excited to have a guest on the island, and he quickly ushers the Professor into his tour of the mountain and the mines. The island quakes with magma movement, and the Professor is amazed that anybody can actually live there. He is even more amazed by the diamond mines. As the chapter nears its conclusion, Mr. F admits that he planned to shoot down the Professor's balloon in order to keep Krakatoa's inhabitants a secret. Now that the Professor knows the truth, Mr. F says that he will have to stay on the island forever; however, it shouldn't be a problem after the Professor learns of all of the wonders on the island.

"You have seen our diamond mines, that is, you have seen one of them; there are many other unexplored plots of ground around the base of the mountain where the earth doesn't ever move. Do you understand now why you will have to remain our permanent guest?"

Basically, Chapter 7 and 8 are both about the Professor exploring more of the island, the people that live there, and the society that they have built.

Chapter 7 begins with the Professor and Mr. F on their way to Mr. M's house. As they walk, the Professor asks what the people of Krakatoa do with their spare time, and the people of Krakatoa have a lot of spare time.

"You have nineteen days out of each of your months in which, according to your Constitution, you have no work to do—are you bored, or have you interests here which keep you busy?"

The first answer that the Professor receives is about the homes that the people live in. Mr. F says that the people have spent a ton of time making their homes as magnificent as possible, and they try to emulate a beautiful house from the country that the family originated from. The people also spend a great deal of time inventing things for their homes that will make their lives simpler, easier, and more relaxing.

Chapter 8 begins with the Professor relaxing like so many of the inhabitants do so frequently. Not long after that, the Professor's tour of the island resumes. He is told that he is going to go see the "Balloon Merry-Go-Round." He states that it sounds like part of an amusement park, and Mr. F confirms that notion. Mr. F also explains that the entire idea has been conceived and executed by the children of the island.

"It is part of an amusement park," said Mr. F., "which the children of Krakatoa are planning for themselves. . .We agreed to give them two boatloads a year, so all of the children held a meeting to decide how best to fill their freighters. This amusement park they have started to build is the result of their planning. The Balloon Merry-Go-Round is their own invention, designed with but little help from us."

The rest of the chapter is about the Professor, Mr. F, and the children using the Balloon Merry-Go-Round. It uses hydrogen to inflate its balloons, and it has small boats attached to it. As it rises into the air, it spins around the central launch pole. The entire contraption then rises above the pole and heads out over the island and toward the ocean. Once over the water, the balloons are deflated, packed up into the boats, and the boats sail back to the island.

The chapter begins with the Professor eating breakfast at a Chinese restaurant. After breakfast, Mr. F and the Professor go to a "fine coral beach" in order to do some swimming. After the swim, the Professor starts asking Mr. F some questions about life on the island. One such question is about why the people live there at all.

"Why," I asked Mr. F., "do you people live here on top of this dormant volcano when with a handful of diamonds you could live a life of lavish ease and comfort in any other country?"

Mr. F gives a fairly lengthy answer, but ultimately, he says they live there because they are happy on the island. The Professor expresses his concern about living on a volcano that might explode in cataclysmic fashion. Mr. F then explains their escape plan and device. He describes a huge flying platform that is lifted aloft by balloon power.

"It's a flying platform, a huge platform big enough to take us all swiftly into the air within ten minutes of a warning from the mountain."

Much of the chapter after this point is Mr. F giving mathematical details about the size of the platform, the lifting strength of the balloons, and the mechanism by which all of the balloons get rapidly inflated with hydrogen. The chapter ends with Mr. F recommending that the Professor secure himself a parachute in case he ever has to flee the island on the giant platform.

In Chapter 9, the Professor, with seemingly unlimited time on his hands, begins to puzzle over the circumstances of the islanders of Krakatoa.  He queries his host, Mr. F, who obligingly provides answers to his questions.  The Professor's most perplexing question is how, despite the great wealth of the diamond minds, the citizens of Krakatoa can "live happily...under the constant threat of being blown sky high".  Mr. F. concedes that, having found such fabulous wealth, the islanders have become "slaves of (their) own piggishness...locked...in a diamond prison".  On the other hand, they have considered the dangers of their environment, and have devised an ingenious method of escape, if necessary.  The islanders have created a huge platform, large enough to accommodate every member of Krakatoa, which can be elevated "swiftly into the air" through the power of twenty enormous hydrogen-powered balloons.  In case of an ultimate emergency, each family will rush to the platform, and has already been drilled as to its responsibilities in making the contraption work.  There will be ample room for the Professor as well, should the platform need to be used; he will only have to request that Mrs. S make him a parachute, so that, like the others, he will be able to disembark from the platform when it has reached its destination (Chapter 9).

The Twenty-One Balloons is a 1947 novel written by William Pène du Bois. This novel mixes the scientific with the fantastic and tells the story of Professor William Waterman Sherman, a retired teacher who attempts to circumnavigate the globe and crash lands on the island of Krakatoa where he discovers a secret society of vast wealth.

Chapter 10 opens with a lecture given by Sherman to the population of Krakatoa on the subject of San Francisco. During the lecture, an impending volcanic eruption causes a panic and leads to all families evacuating the island via balloon platform.

The balloon platform travels west and the vast majority of the citizens parachute over India. The travel to India is in stark contrast to the lives the families lived on land. On land, the families experience extreme wealth, but here they are forced to ration food. The F family stays with the protagonist until the platform flies over Belgium. After Belgium, Sherman is the only pilot remaining and he struggles to keep the platform flying.

Eventually, he crash lands in the North Atlantic where is he rescued by the S. S. Cunningham. The chapter closes in the preset day, with Sherman telling the members of the Western American Explorers’ Club that he intends to sell the diamond cufflinks he acquired in Krakatoa in order to finance another balloon expedition.

At the request of Mr. F, the Professor gives a talk to a gathering of all the citizens of Krakatoa about San Francisco.  While he is speaking, the land begins to shake even more ominously than usual, and the decision is made to evacuate.  Everyone runs to their preasssigned chores and gathers at the balloon platform.  The Professor is the last to arrive, and is helped onto the platform just as the balloon takes off.

After being stranded for seventeen hours in a vacuum directly over the volcano, the balloon is safely on its way.  The passengers watch sadly as huge explosions demolish Krakatoa.  Food is carefully rationed as the platform travels over the Indian Ocean, and when the land of India is reached, all the families but one parachute down.  The Professor alone has no parachute, and the F family has volunteered to remain on the platform with him.  The balloon continues over Europe, and in Belgium the F family finally leaves the Professor.  The Professor struggles to navigate the unwieldy platform over the British Isles, and when he reaches the Atlantic, he crashes it into the sea.  He is rescued by the S.S. Cunningham.

The scene shifts back to the beginning of the story, where the Professor is speaking about his adventures to the Western American Explorers' Club in San Francisco.  When asked what he will do with his life now, he responds that he will sell the diamond cuff links given to him by Mr. F, and use the money to buy a balloon, on which he will spend a full year living in the air as he had originally planned (Chapter 10).