The Twenty-One Balloons

This is such a weird book, I got a lot of Pixar Up vibes from it.

I really enjoyed this whimsical book about a professor who sets out to travel in a balloon for an entire year. I would think the story of a year's long journey in a hot-air balloon would be interesting enough, but this story takes it up several notches. I loved the descriptions (not to mention the technical drawings) of all the professor saw and experienced on his trip.

This won the Newbery Medal in 1947, so while I find the old-fashioned language completely charming, I'm not sure how it would sit with the younger crowd. Recommended for mature fourth or fifth graders or maybe middle schoolers who like other old-fashioned books.

This was a fun book to read with 6 year old Max. The vocabulary was probably more suited for a 12 or 13 year old, so I got to answer about 3 questions per paragraph, but he really grasped the story and loved it.

I really enjoyed it too! It has a lot of complex topics - the desire to explore and escape that people get after being in the same place for a long time, the economics of supply and demand, scientific inventions, the social aspects of living on a small island and some cool geography. It's a really engaging story that feels almost like it's completely factual.