By Emily Lakdawalla (The Planetary Society)
- For ages 6 and up
- $11.04
- Illustrated by Elise Gravel
- 96 pages
- ISBN: 978-1609052638
Blast off with Doodle Tom is an activity book, in the spirit of the "Anti-coloring books." It's printed with stories and facts on each left page and, on the right page, a large frame of blank space with a drawing idea, e.g.: "Draw your very own Martian"; "Draw new undiscovered planets and give them funny names"; and, on a page randomly studded with dots, "Create new constellations by linking stars." There are two large sheets of cartoon-like space stickers in the back. My six-year-old dove straight into this one with her pencil. Kids will have to be able to read fairly well to be able to understand the prompts.
- For 9 to 13 years
- $8.95
- Written by Don Nardo
- 64 pages
- ISBN: 978-1429680240
Destined for Space is an illustrated history of the human fascination with space, split roughly among the pre-spaceflight era (going back to a Greek science fiction story from 160 AD), the century of flight, and the future of space exploration. It's focused mostly on human spaceflight, with only a few pages given to robotic missions. It's lavishly and excellently illustrated.
- For ages 10 to 13
- $16.20
- Written by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano, Illustrated by Michael Carroll
- 48 pages
- ISBN: 978-1570917837
A Black Hole Is Not a Hole does the best job I've seen of explaining what black holes are, approaching them from many different directions with different analogies and lots of humour. The text is suitable for about ages 10 to 13 but I suspect a lot of parents and teachers would learn a lot about how to explain a very difficult topic by reading this book!
How to Draw Amazing Airplanes and Spacecraft
- $6.95
- Written by Kristen McCurry, Illustrated by Mat Edwards
- 64 pages
- ISBN: 978-1429694483
How to Draw Amazing Airplanes and Spacecraft is exactly what it sounds like. It's similar to the "Draw 50 _______" books I enjoyed as a kid, employing construction lines as a base for the final shape, so this one is for older children (and grown-ups). It's mostly aeroplanes, both civilian and military, but it includes the Apollo Command Module, Explorer 1, the Phoenix Mars Lander, the Saturn V Rocket, the Space Shuttle (in launch configuration), and SpaceShipOne.
- $7.95
- Written by Linda McReynolds, Illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke
- 48 pages
- IBSN: 978-1580893657
Eight Days Gone is a curious story book about Apollo 11. It appears to be intended for very young children; the illustrations are very stylised and the text consists of very sparse couplets. Few pages have more than ten words, but read the text and you'll realise you're not reading baby singsong verse; this is poetry. "Edwin Aldrin hops around. / Boot prints left on ashen ground. / Desolation. Silent. Dark. / Tranquil sea. Barren. Stark." Eight Days Gone is a pleasure to read aloud to young children. They may not understand all the words, but the words are mellifluous ones. After all, the story — a trip to the Moon and back — is straightforward to understand from the illustrations, while the lovely words provide a sense of the strange and new.
Series
- For ages 5-7
- Six books, 24-pages each
The series takes a story-style approach to each subject: rather than cramming pages with disconnected facts, there are a couple of simple sentences on left-hand pages and one very large, well-chosen photo on the facing page. The three engineering books are more informative than the three astronomy books. I think the best book in the series is NASA; it does a good job of explaining how the U.S. explores space, why they send robots to some places and humans to others, and so on.
- For ages 7-11
- Four books, 32-pages each
I am always initially suspicious of books that have two-page fact-crammed spreads — usually, they rehash the same old facts you can get in any other non-fiction book — but this series' fact selection is terrific, with up-to-date science and the latest discoveries about the Universe. For instance, the Saturn section in the planets title talks about Titan's lakes and the great northern storm on Saturn, with perfectly chosen, recent photos. Each book also includes three hands-on activities; I didn't try any of them, but they appeared to be well-explained. Each activity is given two full pages, with thorough explanations of both how to perform the experiment or demonstration and what the lesson was supposed to be.
- For ages 8-10
- Eight books, 48-pages each
The Astronaut Travel Guides series includes eight 48-page titles by five authors: The Sun, Mercury and Venus, Earth, The Moon, Mars, Jupiter and the Outer Planets, Stars and Galaxies, and Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors. In keeping with the series' title, the books are partially written in the second person and treat their subjects as though you (the reader) were planning a visit to Space. It makes the text much more engaging than many fact-filled non-fiction books I've seen. The Earth book is particularly good, a thorough introduction to Earth science for younger readers. Interspersed between fact-filled sections are interviews with people working in space careers, like rover driver Scott Maxwell in the Mars book and astronaut Paolo Nespoli in the Earth one. My only problem with the series is that the photo selection is not particularly good, including lots of outdated visualisations. But the text makes up for that, and this is one series I'm keeping on my daughters' bookshelf.
American Space Missions – Astronauts, Exploration and Discovery
- For ages 9-13
- Six books, 48-pages each
The series concerns space history, with narratives about Gemini 4, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, the Challenger disaster, the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station. (The last book is the odd one out, more focused on facts than story.) Although I think the series focuses rather too heavily on failures, the stories are good and every two-page spread has an excellent photo printed across at least half a page. This might be a good series to present to reluctant readers, because the drama and the beautiful photos encourage page-turning.
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