Question of the Day:

If people who read books on paper are called bookworms, then are people who
listen to cassette books called tapeworms?

Listen Up!

Audio books are considered to be the fastest-growing segment in the publishing industry, growing 75 percent since 1995 and representing $2 billion in annual sales, according to the Audio Publishers Association (APA).

The Twenty-One Balloons

William Pène du Bois

Recorded Books #95192

After years of teaching math to reluctant young students in San Francisco, Professor William Sherman Waterman wants a change. He plans a wonderful adventure: he will spend a year sailing around the world in a giant balloon. With his friends waving good-bye on a sunny day in August 1883, he gently flies his balloon above the rows of city rooftops and floats toward the Pacific Ocean. But only three weeks later, a freighter in the Atlantic Ocean sights a group of 20 destroyed balloons—and the professor clinging to the wreckage. His tale of a marvelous island harboring unbelievable wealth in the Pacific Ocean and a terrifying disaster there stuns the world. Could his incredible report be true? Youngsters—and the young-at-heart—who dream of adventure will love William Pène du Bois’ Newbery Medal-winning novel. Packed with richly imaginative inventions and delightful characters, The Twenty-One Balloons is a brilliant mixture of fantasy and fact. So say farewell to your loved ones, as narrator John McDonough takes you on the trip of your life.