When 7-year-old S becomes 8-year-old S later this month, we’re going to celebrate in Houston at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. To help get him and 3-year-old F fired up for the trip, we’ve rented Apollo 13 and loaded up on books about the history (mostly) of the U.S. space program.
Our shelves are currently sagging with these titles:
- Blasting Off: Rockets Then and Now by Steven Otfinoski
- Liftoff: A Photobiography of John Glenn by Don Mitchell
- One Giant Leap: The Story of Neil Armstrong by Don Brown
- The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins by Bea Uusma Schyffert
- Spacebusters: The Race to the Moon by Philip Wilkinson
- Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon by David West Reynolds
- To Space & Back by Sally Ride with Susan Okie
- Adventure in Space: The Flight to Fix the Hubble by Elaine Scott and Margaret Miller
- Floating in Space and Mission to Mars by Franklin M. Branley and illustrated by True Kelly
- The Adventures of Sojourner: The Mission to Mars That Thrilled the World by Susi Trautmann Wunsch
And where, you may ask, is Catherine Thimmesh‘s Sibert winner and Cybils shortlister, Team Moon? Well, not in either of my local public libraries, but if they’ve got it in the NASA gift shop, I have a feeling we’ll be bringing it home. It beats freeze-dried ice cream any day.
Looks like you’ve got a good list of books there. You might also want to read Buzz Aldrin’s REACHING FOR THE MOON, a picture book autobiography illustrated by Wendell Minor. Minor was one of six artists commissioned by NASA to document the shuttle Discovery’s return to flight in 1988.
Welcome to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. I hope you and the urchins enjoy your visit.
Good call, Elaine — the Aldrin book is a good one, and we don’t want Buzz to feel left out.
Thanks, Sherry. Just hearing S explain to F how the Apollo missions worked makes me think we’re going to have a fantastic time.
Hi Chris,
My son and I love If You Decide to Go to the Moon, by Faith McNulty. It was the last book she finished before she died. It’s well written and contains fabulous illustrations by Stephen Kellogg. It was the 2006 winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book award for nonfiction.
Regards,
Tricia