No Balloons for Me

My mother, who is wonderful in many many ways, has the small flaw (if you can even call it a flaw) of being terrified of sudden loud noises such as...well balloons popping, fireworks etc.  So as you can probably guess my brother and I never had balloons at birthday parties. As such, whenever the kids I work with do something with balloons I am just as excited as they are because I haven't had my whole life to get sick of them. There is a guy, we call him the balloon man but his real name is John Cassidy check him out here, who does an awesome show that is a mix of comedy, magic, and making really awesome things out of balloons. 

The Balloon Man

        

My wonderful mother and I

So, as you can imagine, I was really excited to read a book called 21 Balloons, by William Pene du Bois.  After reading the book I am happy to say that my excitement was entirely justified and this is, in fact, a terrific book. Check out this line from the introduction, "half of this story is true and the other half might very well have happened."  I love that line.  It's such a great answer for all of those people who demand, "is this true?"  Who cares if it's true it's a great story so lets just enjoy it!

Also this book has an intermission in the middle.  How awesome is that? Of course by that point I was so engrossed in the story that I didn't even pause for a proper intermission, I just blew right through it. The book is Professor William Waterman Sherman retelling his adventures as he tried to live a year in a hot air balloon traveling around the world.  He set out to go wherever the wind took him and he certainly had some grand experiences along the way. Listen to his tone as he describes the scene when his balloon first took off, "there was considerable confusion and what appeared to be a street fight. This was most flattering." 

Because it is Professor Sherman retelling his experiences the book reads just like some old explorer came up to you and said, "let me tell you a story."  And this makes it so fun to read. 

Loving balloons, having grand adventures, enjoying a story...that's kids stuff.