Sally's Newbery winner: The Twenty-One Balloons
Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka)
The same week the partners cram for Honda, Sally is reading William Pène du Bois. ABAA's Mad Men roundup points out it is close to the same story as the Fitzgerald collection Betty read two seasons earlier. The mother got the diamond as big as the Ritz. The daughter got the version with balloons.
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The book
The Twenty-One Balloons
Du Bois won the 1948 Newbery Medal for this one, about a retired teacher who sets off in a balloon and lands on Krakatoa, where the islanders are sitting on a secret diamond mine. It ends with the volcano. Sally's home life in 1965 has a lot in common with the volcano.
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Sleuthed by @shelfsleuth · 2026-10-22
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Paused Tuesdays
One still, one stack, every Tuesday morning.
Also in Mad Men
All 26 books
Joan returns the office copy: Lady Chatterley's LoverS1 E3
Don's bedtime research: The Best of EverythingS1 E6
Don's Israel homework: ExodusS1 E6
Bert's recommendation: Atlas ShruggedS1 E8
Don's bar find: Meditations in an EmergencyS2 E1
Peggy's mother and the library copy: The Agony and the EcstasyS2 E2
Betty and the Fitzgerald stories: Babylon Revisited and Other StoriesS2 E4
Joy's morning after: The Sound and the FuryS2 E11
Sally reads to Grandpa Gene: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireS3 E3
Lane at the hospital: The Adventures of Tom SawyerS3 E6
Roger on Ogilvy: Confessions of an Advertising ManS3 E7
Betty in the bath: The GroupS3 E10