This story tells the journey of Apollo 11. It includes pictures to help readers understand the sequence of events.
Ages 7-9
Source Pierce County Library ( )

Floca cleverly juxtaposes the full-colour tale of landing on the moon with single-toned flashbacks tracking the evolution of mankind’s obsession with the moon and the science of getting there. ( )

Outer space and astronauts are a perennially popular topic for kids, and Moonshot - with its generous trim size, precise illustrations, and accurate text presented with short line lengths - allows a comprehensive and comprehensible story of Apollo 11's trip to the moon in 1969. The author/illustrator consulted many different sources. Back matter (on the endpaper) includes an essay called "One Giant Leap." ( )

Moonshot relives the dramatic adventure of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. The text consists of spare, tight blank verse that somehow manages to thrill the heart as it economizes on words, while the pen-and-ink illustrations evoke the adventures of superheroes in graphic novels. I am too young to have been one of the millions on Earth who were glued to their televisions for those dramatic days in 1969, but while reading Moonshot I felt a little of the excitement and fear that the people back home must have felt as they listened to the crackly reports of the astronauts coming across the airwaves. The book doesn't just have this effect on humble space enthusiasts; astronaut Michael Collins says in a blurb on the book's cover that "Reading Moonshot gave me the feeling I was back up in space." Although the text is spare, short, and evocative, the sentence structure and vocabulary are a bit advanced for the younger end of the cited age range. I think the publisher does a disservice to the book by stipulating the upper appropriate age as eight; the way that this book so effectively stirs the emotions of the reader, and the graphic-novel style of its illustrations, should appeal to much older kids. Although it's a picture book, it doesn't feel like a kids' book -- it feels almost like the storyboard for a movie.

This would be a great book to read to your fifth graders. It tells the story of Apollo 11, but teaches you science within the story. The illustration is great and the story amazing. I would highly recommend this book. ( )