Recently our family hosted a kids book discussion for the fun and fantastical book “The Twenty-One Balloons” by William Pene du Bois. It is such a fun and silly story – and our afternoon meet-up is just that! Lava cakes, DIY hot-air balloon decor, international foods, creative presentations, and a cute craft! Of course I can’t forget to mention that we even have an exciting volcanic eruption! Let me show you how you can host a Twenty-One Balloons book discussion for kids – and an easy and affordable one at that!
Since the summertime we have been following Treehouse Schoolhouse’s Book Club, and absolutely loving it. I bought the curriculum and HIGHLY recommend it! It contains all sorts of ideas for activities and learning associated with books throughout the week. For the month of September, our suggested book selection was The Twenty-One Balloons.
So What’s the Story About?
The Twenty-One Balloons is about an adventurer named Professor William Waterman Sherman who intends to travel across the Pacific in a hot-air balloon. However, in a silly twist of fate he lands on the volcanic island of Krakatoa. He then discovers a secret colony of people and a world of unimaginable wealth along with some incredible balloon inventions!
Unfortunately, there was not very much time to plan ahead with hosting this event– (because 1 year-old, homeschool, and an insane soccer schedule for my oldest!), but thank goodness for the dollar store!!!
Baskets & Blackboards – Twenty-One Balloons Book Discussion Decor
As usual, we pull out our trusty blackboard and I have my daughter design a sign with the title of our book.
I have my girls search for some baskets around the house. To these baskets we attach “bubble balloons” we find the night before at our dollar store. Thinking this could look sort of like hot air balloons…!? Plus, HOW COOL they?! Like bubbles you would blow out of a kids bubble wand. Very unique looking! We’d never seen them before! Before the guests start to arrive cue some nice jazz music to create a nice “classy” atmosphere.
“The best way of travel, however, if you aren’t in a hurry at all, if you don’t care where you are going, if you don’t like to use your legs, if you want to see everything quite clearly, if you don’t want to be annoyed at all by any choice of directions, is in a balloon.” – William Pene du Bois
Twenty-One Balloons Table Settings
In keeping with the theme of the book, where most of the characters on Krakatoa are super wealthy, we decide to make the tables look fancy schmancy! A “reserved” place setting for each guest. We happen to have these “Reserved” cards just lying around- perfect! My daughter writes the names of each guest according to how the characters of Krakatoa were named in the book – with the first letter of their last name and a number associated with it depending on how many were in their family! My girls were “T1” and “T2”. All of the kids find this to be quite humorous!
When choosing a color scheme, I go with a light blue and gold. I buy plates and plastic utensils from the dollar store to match. The ultimate goal is to spend the least amount of money as possible yet make it look put together and sophisticated. My trusty burlap table runner (that I use often) gives off a vintage-y “explorer-esque” feel. This juxtaposes nicely with the extra-shimmery ribbon that we tie around the gold napkins. This ribbon comes from the dollar store as well. I buy one gold and one that looks like loads of little diamonds! Exquisite. We pluck a few red roses from our nearby garden, and WA-LAH!
Photo by Addy
“The Bible tells us to build our houses on foundations of stone…on Krakatoa we have found it necessary to use an even stronger foundation. Our houses are built on a substructure of solid diamond boulders.” -William Pene du Bois
Food & Discussion Time
On the day of our book discussion, we send out a message encouraging our book club friends to come dressed up looking “very wealthy“! First off we invite our guests to make their plates from a variety of foods that are brought by the families including fresh-from-the-oven potato latkes, warm lava cakes, crackers and cheese, and more! I then lead them in a discussion using a bunch of questions from the curriculum I mentioned earlier.
“There are two kinds of travel. The usual way is to take the fastest imaginable conveyance along the shortest road. The other way is not to care particularly where you are going or how long it will take you, or whether you get there or not.” -William Pene du Bois
Kids Twenty One Balloons Presentations
Next, it is time for a bunch of the kids to share presentations such as homemade salt-dough maps of Krakatoa. We see little diorama-style projects with impressive clay creatures, pretend restaurant ideas, sketches and other fun things! One young boy decides to paint mini canvases for each book that we do together. It’s pretty much the cutest thing ever! Each child takes their turn presenting while others sit quietly and listen.
A Volcanic Eruption
Following our presentation time, it is the long-awaited volcano activity! My girls and I made a volcano out of salt dough a few weeks before our book discussion. We decide we would wait to erupt it at our meet-up so everyone can enjoy it with us! Everyone is thrilled and loves watching – parents included!
“I tried running- the action of the earth’s surface threw me to the ground. I tried walking- I doddered, staggered, floundered, and tumbled. I tried crawling, but the earth’s rumblings and heavings kept rolling me over on my side. I Iooked up at the mountain ahead and saw at once that it would be impossible to reach in the short time allotted me.” -William Pene du Bois
Twenty-One Balloons Craft Time
Lastly, we serve up a vegan, dairy-free hot cocoa from the crockpot (mentioned in one of the last chapters of the book) and kids do a simple hot-air balloon craft. Here is a similar craft video tutorial. We have them watercolor for the background and the clouds, and they use construction paper glued together for the top of the hot-air balloon!
Hopefully viewing our book club meet-up has gotten your head in the clouds a bit and helped you brainstorm on How to Host a Twenty-One Balloon Book Discussion for yourself! Click here to find more book club inspiration!
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