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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
A charming story with vivid imagery and characters. I can't wait to read it to my kids.
I have this theory that the book a person loves as a child… The one that they keep going back to over and over is very telling of key personality factors they will continue to manifest all of their lives. The story I always went back to was Alice in Wonderland…When I was obsessed with this story I was neither voraciously curious, a fan of the absurd or an Anglophile, yet these turned out to be cornerstones of person I became.
When recently a close friend shared with me that their favorite book when they were in fifth grade was this book the 21 balloons I had to have a listen and see if my theory would hold up. It did indeed! I found myself chuckling quite a bit over the aspects of the main characters personality I can see in my friends. I also was amused by the fact that her fifth grade self probably reveled marveled and desperately wanted to re-create some of the wondrous inventions found in the book. I’m also quite impressed that she favored a book with such a not so likable male character… But that too is fitting of her. She promises me she will read it again to see if it holds up… I think it will as I was reading it for the first time and still found it a delightfully silly adventure in which my brain was able to conjure fantastical visuals to go along with.
Please keep in mind if you are reading this review and considering this book for a wee one it was written in 1947 and while the imagination holds solid so does the white supremacy… so best to vet the content and be ready to have some good conversations about colonization.
When recently a close friend shared with me that their favorite book when they were in fifth grade was this book the 21 balloons I had to have a listen and see if my theory would hold up. It did indeed! I found myself chuckling quite a bit over the aspects of the main characters personality I can see in my friends. I also was amused by the fact that her fifth grade self probably reveled marveled and desperately wanted to re-create some of the wondrous inventions found in the book. I’m also quite impressed that she favored a book with such a not so likable male character… But that too is fitting of her. She promises me she will read it again to see if it holds up… I think it will as I was reading it for the first time and still found it a delightfully silly adventure in which my brain was able to conjure fantastical visuals to go along with.
Please keep in mind if you are reading this review and considering this book for a wee one it was written in 1947 and while the imagination holds solid so does the white supremacy… so best to vet the content and be ready to have some good conversations about colonization.
I loved this book as a kid and must have read it 5 times. This time it did not appeal to me nearly as much, and I probably would have given it 3 starts. K, however, loved it and gave it 5 stars. So I settled on 4. Maybe it’s a book that’s just better when you’re 11.
A classic, and a personal childhood favorite: imaginative, exciting, and timeless. I re-read my copy many times, and am now pleased to share it with my own children.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I read this as a kid and loved it. It sparked so much imagination and creativity and brought joy.
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
This was a typical children's book of the era. It mixed imaginative adventure with some historical facts that had me looking up a few things. Overall it was cute.
adventurous
I love this book! William Pène du Bois is a wonderful writer. He combines his rich imagination with his knowledge of science to create a wonderfully magical tale. The story is creative and charming and I will always save a special place on my book self for this book.
Some books age well, and others... well, others just don't. In my opinion, this book doesn't age as well as others we've been reading. It was written in the 1940s, and I found it dry and somewhat awkward. The whole story was a little hard to swallow. I guess the disconnect is that the writing style (to me) seems most appropriate for middle-school age (detailed technical explanations of things, long sections describing things like a balloon company trying to make a floating chair contraption), but really the goofy, campy utopia depicted on the island seems pretty childish to me, like something from a Dr. Seuss book. I guess the humor went past me, maybe I was trying to take it too seriously. If you just take it as wild, nonsensical craziness, it's probably fine.