Floca, Brian. Moonshot: the Flight of Apollo 11. New York: Atheneum for Young Readers, 2009. Print.
Summary
The story of Apollo 11 and the first moon landing, from lift-off to the first steps to the return to earth, is recounted with colorful illustrations and free-verse poetry.
My Impressions
This book is a perfect demonstration that "non-fiction" doesn't have to mean "reads like a textbook." Floca instead captures the feelings and the little moments that went into the historic first moon landing. The moon landing tops my list of historic events I regret not being born early enough to see, but this book helped me feel like I was there. Floca leaves an author's note at the end filling in the rest of the details.
What Other Reviewers Said
Grade 2–5—Large in trim size as well as topic, this stirring account retraces Apollo 11's historic mission in brief but precise detail, and also brilliantly captures the mighty scope and drama of the achievement. Rendered in delicate lines and subtly modulated watercolors, the eye-filling illustrations allow viewers to follow the three astronauts as they lumber aboard their spacecraft for the blastoff and ensuing weeklong journey ("…there's no fresh air outside the window;/after a week this small home will not smell so good./This is not why anyone/wants to be an astronaut"). They split up so that two can make their famous sortie, and then reunite for the return to "the good and lonely Earth,/glowing in the sky." Floca enhances his brief, poetic main text with an opening spread that illustrates each component of Apollo 11, and a lucid closing summary of the entire Apollo program that, among other enlightening facts, includes a comment from Neil Armstrong about what he said versus what he meant to say when he stepped onto the lunar surface. Consider this commemoration of the first Moon landing's 40th anniversary as a spectacular alternative for younger readers to Catherine Thimmesh's Team Moon (Houghton, 2006).- John Peters, New York Public Library (1)
Forty years after NASA’s Apollo 11 mission first landed astronauts on the moon, this striking nonfiction picture book takes young readers along for the ride. The moon shines down on Earth, where three men don spacesuits, climb into Columbia, and wait for liftoff. On a nearby beach, people gather to watch the rocket blast the astronauts into space. The astronauts fly to the moon, circle it, land on it, walk on its surface, and see “the good and lonely Earth, glowing in the sky.” After flying back to the orbiter, they return to Earth and splash down, “home at last.” An appended note discusses the mission in greater detail. Written with quiet dignity and a minimum of fuss, the main text is beautifully illustrated with line-and-wash artwork that provides human interest, technological details, and some visually stunning scenes. The book’s large format offers plenty of scope for double-page illustrations, and Floca makes the most of it, using the sequential nature of picture books to set up the more dramatic scenes and give them human context. The moving image of Earth seen from the moon, for instance, is preceded by a picture of a lone astronaut looking up. A handsome, intelligent book with a jacket that’s well-nigh irresistible. - Carolyn Phelan (2)
Suggested Activities
Take your own "trip" to the moon as a library or classroom. You can buy astronaut foods such as freeze-dried ice cream at various stores. (Here in North Texas, at least, you can find it at Fry's Electronics.) For older readers, be sure to check out The Dish (rated PG-13 for some strong language), the hilarious and heart-warming story of a small Australia town that played a crucial role in ensuring that TV viewers world-wide could see the first images of the moon landing.
Other Citations
(1) Peters, John. Rev. of Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11. School Library Journal. Amazon.com. Web. 13 Nov. 2010. <http://tinyurl.com/35qkj22>.
(2) Phelan, Carolyn. "Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11." Booklist 105.12 (2009): 80. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 13 Nov. 2010.
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