Skip to main content

Moonshot: the Flight of Apollo 11


By Brian Floca
Atheneum, 2009. Unpaged. Juvenile Nonfiction
How well I remember, forty years ago, being spitting mad at my father for making us go to church on the night that Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were landing on the moon. Lucky for him (and our domestic [sea of] tranquility) we got home in time to hear Neal Armstrong utter his immortal phrase, and see his booted foot settle into the moon's dust. Brian Floca has perfectly reproduced not only the events of those days, but the spirit in this lovely new picture book. "High above there is the Moon, cold and quiet, no air, no life, but glowing in the sky." As the astronauts approach the moon, it is the earth that glows in the sky, and the contrast of the two, earth and her moon, is the thread that takes the venturers there and back again. Floca's text is spare and evocative; his text exquisite. Best book I have seen, or expect to see, on Apollo 11's voyage to the moon.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...