Illustrated by Bobbie Gumbert, this non-fiction picture book for elementary school students invites readers to participate in the experience. Here is the opening paragraph:
Two of us landed on the moon July 20, 1969. Those of us back on earth stared into the sky. "Was the moon any different?" we wondered.
Gretchen used the first person plural to emphasize that, "This story is much bigger than my personal reflections. It is a story about a world-wide corporate experience." In choosing that unique point of view, she aligns those watching the launch, the landing, and the recovery with the astronauts who made history plus implies that the reader is also part of the historic event.
"Those of us at the launch site felt the ground tremble under our feet. We saw birds rousted from their nests."
In BACK ON EARTH there is a great juxtaposition of ordinary events along with what was going on in outer space:
While we waited [for the landing], we played space games. We designed helmets with tin foil and pretended we were astronauts. We pretended we could fly like birds. We strapped thermos jugs to our backs for make-believe air tanks...We mixed orange flavored powder in glasses of water and sipped the same tangy drink as the astronauts.
After three long days of waiting, the Eagle landed!
"That's one small step for man, One giant leap for mankind." Neil Armstrong
Gretchen included a list of YouTube titles, a glossary, and information on how to interview others who witnessed the moon landing with the hopes that "this will start the conversation between generations."
Just in case you want to watch (or re-watch) the landing, YouTube offers this:
GIVEAWAY: Leave me a comment by November 1 with your email address if you are new to my blog. Gretchen will send the winner a personally autographed book. US addresses only.
A is for Astronaut: Blasting Through the Alphabet, will appeal to readers of many ages. Like other books in Sleeping Bear's ABC list, each letter of the alphabet is anchored by a short poem for readers ages 5-8 and a longer exposition for 9-11 year-olds.
Illustrated by the talented Scott Brundage, each picture amplifies the text as in, Bis for Blastoff.
Amazing illustration!
Here is the poem for N which stands for...NASA. What else?
The world loves outer space; it's a grand destination,
And NASA's the group representing our nation.
The N stands for National, and it gives us such pride
when a rocket is launched with our flag on its side!
Don't you love the young astronomer's t-shirt?
I liked the R page because of the accessible description of Rendezvous. Here's the second paragraph: Consider the much-simplifed example of a football game where the coach has called for a pass play. In order for the pass play to be successful, the quarterback must throw the football (spaceship one) to the pass receiver (spaceship two) who will catch the ball. The quarterback throws the ball to where the receiver is going to be--not where he is at the instant he makes the throw. When the ball finally arrives and the receiver makes the catch, the play is a success! This is similar to the way spaceships will dock, or meet, in space.
That's an explanation I will remember!
BEHIND THE SCENES
“Astro Clay”–Astronaut Clayton Anderson's story is one of perseverance. He applied 15 times before NASA selected him as an astronaut in 1998; and he spent 30 years working for NASA, 15 as an engineer and 15 as an astronaut. He is the first and ONLY Astronaut selected from the State of Nebraska.
This STEAM book will be a great addition to any school or home library. Here's a brief interview about how this book came to life.
CLAY: I was in Omaha, NE at the West Town Barnes and Noble, preparing for a book signing with my first book, The Ordinary Spaceman. The store manager kept pulling me over to the nearby children’s section. “You should write a children’s book,” she said. Hesitant, I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “Yeah… maybe one day.” She pointed out specific publishers, continually mentioning Sleeping Bear Press (SBP). “They don’t have ‘A is for Astronaut’,” was her firm “suggestion.” Shrugging my shoulders once again, and feigning only brief interest, I was overjoyed when the actual book signing began and turned my focus onto something I actually understood! A few months later, during some idle time at home, I did a Google search on SBP. It was then that I finally woke up and saw their tremendous success with their alphabet book series. Electronically investigating “A is for Airplane,” and a couple other titles on their highly populated series list, I thought to myself, "I can do this!”
Immediately I began to formulate the words I would use for each letter of the alphabet. A was easy… astronaut. B followed suit with Blastoff. I was cruising until I got to letters like F and K and I. Some more research via the internet gave me all 26 letters and a corresponding space term. Then came the poems. I actually finished the entire book in about 1.5 weeks!
CAROL: What was the most difficult part to write—the poems or the expository text? Why?
CLAY: The expository text was the most difficult for me, although difficult is a relative term. The poems simply “flew” from my brain (do you like that space reference?!) Writing them was a tremendously fun process. With the text however, a different challenge was presented. I was seeking to entertain, educate, and inform, while at the same time creating interesting reading material that was technically correct and had the ability to “stretch” the young reader’s vocabulary. Certain space concepts (e.g., rendezvous) forced me to dig a bit deeper as a writer. Often speaking to young children in schools, I use visual demonstrations to communicate some of the more technical aspects of flying in space. It became a simple matter of putting those demonstrations down on paper. A second part of the challenge was technical accuracy. I don’t claim to be an expert on “all things space.” Heck, I’m just an astronaut. Finding adequate reference material to ensure that what I wrote was valid and correct, required a bit more digging than I thought would be necessary. In the end I think we succeeded masterfully, but I’m partial!
When speaking to kids and young adults around the nation, I constantly implore them to remember that “…they are just like me.”They can be anything they chose to be.It will take hard work, a lot of help, and a little bit of luck, but the future is theirs.They must dare to make it extraordinary.
VIDEO
Check out this fun video starring Clayton Anderson--as himself!
