One Giant Leap , and: Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: One Giant Leap, and: Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 Elizabeth Bush Burleigh, Robert. One Giant Leap; illus. by Mike Wimmer. Philomel, 2009 40p. ISBN 978-0-399-23883-3 $16.99 R Gr. 3–5 Floca, Brian. Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11; written and illus. by Brian Floca. Jackson/Atheneum, 2009 42p. ISBN 978-1-4169-5046-2 $17.99 R* Gr. 2–5 This pair of picture books, each featuring a poetic text that fairly begs to be read aloud, will be even better savored by independent readers who will delight in the authors’ carefully crafted storytelling while lingering over the visual renderings of the first manned moon landing. Burleigh offers a bit more emphasis on the personal fears of the astronauts as they take their pioneering leap into space (“July 21. Unease. Uncertainty. . . . Liftoff in one minute. Away from here—maybe”), and he presses the role of Command and Service Module pilot Michael Collins [End Page 436] a bit further into the limelight. Wimmer’s accompanying oil paintings are more traditionally dramatic, with the near-photorealistic portrayals of the astronauts making activity inside the cramped module feel personal and immediate. From his line-and-watercolor cartoon-style illustrations, Floca’s take seems on the mission seems at first to be considerably less nerve-wracking, but he actually transfers much of the dramatic focus to the millions of Earthbound viewers who gnawed their nails in anxiety for the crew’s safety and success (“Armstrong, calling from the Moon, calm as a man who has just parked a car. ‘Houston,’ he says. ‘Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.’ Armstrong is calm—but on Earth they cheer!”). If Floca’s opus wins by a nose, it is because of his inclusion of technically detailed endpapers of the spacecraft and more copious supplementary notes. However, the complementary points of view of these two titles offer readers a stirring, you-arethere recreation of the mission that will give elementary schoolers insight into why the grandparents rattle on about “that day” in July of ’69. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois