A professor finds a way to send his dreams aloft

Did you know that April 12 is Look Up at the Sky Day? That’s why this week is the perfect time for your book club to start reading William Pene Du Bois’ “The Twenty-One Balloons.”

Professor Sherman has taught arithmetic for 40 years and wants to get away. He buys a giant hot-air balloon and stocks it with food, fishing lines, lightweight furniture and books. His plan is to spend a whole year floating peacefully wherever the winds take him -- far away from people, schoolbooks or anything that might annoy him.

After a smooth takeoff from San Francisco, the professor enjoys seeing the crowds of people looking up at him in the sky. He travels for seven peaceful days over the Pacific Ocean until hungry seagulls land on the balloon and puncture it. The professor falls from the sky onto Krakatoa, a tiny volcanic island that appears calm and empty.

But Krakatoa holds many surprises. The professor discovers that, despite its regular violent earthquakes, 20 families have made it their secret home. More astonishing are the huge and ornate houses they’ve built with money they’ve earned from the island’s mine, which is full of huge and glittering diamonds.

Because the island families want life to be fun and easy, they don’t make their children go to school. Instead, kids on Krakatoa help build houses, design and operate a hot-air balloon merry-go-round and assist in preparing elaborate and delicious meals.

The professor enjoys island life until the volcano erupts in the largest and noisiest explosion of all time.

Book club ideas

Eat tropical fruit salad and talk about the amusement park ride you’d design or what you’d buy if you owned a diamond mine.

See cut diamonds and crystals in the E. Hadley Stuart Jr. Hall of Gems and Minerals at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 763-DIN0, www.nhm.org.

Learn how to make an erupting volcano cake in “The Special Effects Cookbook” by Michael E. Samonek.

Related reading: “Krakatoa: History’s Loudest Volcano” by Kathy Furgang; “Volcanoes & Earthquakes” by Susanna Van Rose; “The Story of Diamonds” by Jean Milne; “The World of Exploration” by Philip Wilkinson, “Ballooning” by Carole S. Briggs and “The National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers.”

This is one in a series on book clubs for kids. Send book club news to Jo Perry at BookClubFun@aol.com.