Man on the Moon: a day in the life of Bob

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From the tragedy of the fire in Apollo 1 during a simulated launch, Apollo 8's bold pioneering flight around the moon, through to the euphoria of the first moonwalk, and to the discoveries made by the first scientist on the moon aboard Apollo 17, this book covers it all. If you were to ask me before I read this book "who is Frank Borman?" I would not have been able to tell you. Commander of Apollo 8, they were the first crew to complete trans-lunar injection and travel the quarter of a billion miles to reach lunar orbit. The first crew to ever orbit the moon. There were numerous times during this book where I had to stop reading and fully comprehend the importance and synergistic meaning behind each Apollo mission.

Plano author Anastasia Suen has written a remarkable nonfiction children's book about man's first steps on the moon. Reading this book to your child serves as a perfect opportunity to share this historical event with young minds. The language is very appropriate for the targeted 3-8 age range.Today, at the NASA space centers in Houston and Florida, the Saturn Vs for Apollo 18 and 19 [both missions canceled] lie on tourist stands, like unfinished obelisks, reminders of a time that seems now as remote as the moon itself. Across the distance of a [half] century, Apollo is an anomaly. There was a rare confluence of historical forces in 1961: A perceived threat to national prestige from the Soviet Union was met by a dynamic leader, John Kennedy, and economic prosperity allowed him to launch a massive effort to demonstrate America’s capabilities. The moon was the ideal target – close enough to reach, audacious enough to capture the imagination. The usual suspects (Apollo 8, 11 and 13) are covered in detail. As is the tragedy of Apollo 1. But Chaikin also gives a lot of room to the Apollo 12 and 14-17 missions. The third part of the book mostly being about Lunar geology. The fact that the story is ‘a day in the life’ style means it is written in the 3rd person, I think this really adds to the narrative as the reader is able to notice things that Bob does not- such as the aliens. It is clearly meant to be a patriotic book meant to convey that the US won the space race.But it conveniently forgets to mention that the Soviets won a number of earlier space battles.That prompted President Kennedy to launch the outrageously expensive Apollo programme.It was a battle of the Cold War.

The first sentence of this book effectively ignites a child's curiosity. Astronauts Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were the first humans to land on the moon when some claimed it “could not be done.” Using a powerful mixture of text and illustrations, ‘Man on the Moon’ follows the Apollo 11’s journey into space, the astronauts’ first steps, items they collected, and the patriotic symbol left behind. This tale starts off perfectly happy but once Pitch, the King of Nightmares, finds out that this boy has never had a nightmare he vows to make the boy his own and deem him the Prince of Nightmares. In the outcome of the battle the boy is left alone on the moon to be raised by the Moonbots, Moonmice and giant Glowworms who were also left behind. As he grows, he discovers the planet Earth through his father's telescope & realises that there are children on the far away planet that are much like him. As the children's lost balloons float up to him he finds that he can hear their hopes and dreams if he held them to his ear. First of all, I have a huuuuuge soft spot in my heart for Bill Anders of Apollo 8 fame, being as he's a family friend and his dad was a total badass. So it was awesome to hear so much about him and his thought processes and just...impressions of what being up there was like and about what he did after. And also hear the news that there's actually official proof that he took the famous Earthrise picture, which was under much debate for a long time.He is also the author of Air and Space: The National Air and Space Museum Story of Flight, published in 1997 by Bulfinch Press. Chaikin's illustrated narrative of space exploration, SPACE: A History of Space Exploration in Photographs, was published in 2002 by Carlton Books. He co-authored the text for the highly successful collection of Apollo photography, Full Moon, which was published by Knopf in 1999.

As mentioned, this book gives me almost unlimited ideas of ways it could be used with a KS1 class across the curriculum, not just an English, so I think it could be a really affective text with the right class. Creative writing- there are so many opportunities for creative writing tasks as a direct result of looking at this book. For example, writing postcards as if they were visiting the moon, writing tourist leaflets all about the moon (perhaps in collaboration with science lessons), writing Bob’s job description and then applying for that job etc. The book ends with a look at the things people did after Apollo had ended. But at this point I had mostly lost interest. I don’t remember any zero-gravity peeing happening in that chapter. The writing is also just really good - the exciting parts were exciting! The moving bits were moving. What really made it for me was the experiences of the astronauts - it's very human. This is really not that technical, although now I kind of want to see what's written about the geology of the moon. Like did you know that NASA just opened up some samples from Apollo 17?? They set them aside for 50 years until science had advanced. So cool. I read a bunch about Martian geology after watching some of Mike Brown's lectures - apparently I'm into geology now?

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There is also the story of Alan Shepard,who managed to get the command of Apollo 14,at the ripe age of 47,much to the dismay of the others,who had been waiting in line.

Using the idea of the gift shop on the moon, as is shown, to help with addition and subtraction, use of money etc. A quote which summed up the enormity and meaning of space travel to me was captured in a recording from Apollo 11 (first moon landing) astronaut Mike Collins from the far side of the moon. While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made historic footprints on eons old moon soil at the other side of the moon, he was orbiting through the far side of the moon on his own. Good resource for the study of space- starting talk about the different planets, the fact that in space there is not gravity, the distance between Earth and the moon, among other planets. Award-winning science journalist and space historian Andrew Chaikin has authored books and articles about space exploration and astronomy for more than 25 years. Writer-director and explorer James Cameron (Titanic, Aliens of the Deep) called him “our best historian of the space age.” Chaikin collaborated with moonwalker-turned-artist Alan Bean to write Apollo: An Eyewitness Account, published in 1998 by the Greenwich Workshop Press. He also co-edited The New Solar System, a compendium of writings by planetary scientists, now in its fourth edition. His essays include the chapter on human spaceflight in The National Geographic Encyclopedia of Space, published in 2004, and Live from the Moon: The Societal Impact of Apollo for NASA’s 2007 book The Societal Impact of Spaceflight.

Creating a timeline of Bob’s day looking at sequencers, first, then, next... Children then create their own timelines of their ideal day on the moon. This is a fun and engaging picture book that I believe would be attractive to students in KS1, and even early years, due to the appealing art style and the subject matter of space and aliens! I think this would work well as a real aloud to the whole class to inspire their imaginations, and also inspire work throughout the curriculum- which I have detailed below. The Man in the Moon is the first book in The Guardians of Childhood series and tells a beautiful story that is sad at times and incredibly beautiful in its entirety. I always find Joyce's books to have the most stunning imagery and I love the out of this world tone of the illustrations in this one. This is the tale of how a little boy, a child aboard the ship the Moon Clipper surrounded by family and friends, became the Man in the Moon (MiM) and gathered up all the Guardians of Childhood. What a fabulous, beautifully illustrated book that tells a unique story about the man in the moon. This is one of those books that reads like a movie you'd want to take your kids to see. I'm not sure what I was drawn more towards, the absolutely amazing artwork or the fantastic story.