Review by New York Times Review
HALF A CENTURY later, the story of the first lunar landing still has the capacity to astound. These picture books, many with all-ages appeal, combine artful, accurate texts and wondrous images to introduce a new generation to the Apollo program - and some of the 410,000 people who made it possible. IN CHRIS GALL'S GO FOR THE MOON: A ROCKET, A BOY, AND THE FIRST MOON LANDING (Roaring Brook, 48 pp., $19.99; ages 5 to 10), it's 1969, and a young narrator acts as an earthbound crewmate, keeping pace with the Apollo 11 astronauts from his suburban backyard. Double-page spreads juxtapose the stages of the journey, from launch to triumphant splashdown, with inset images of a Tang-sipping kid in hornrims and sneakers, building and transporting his model rocket, testing out a cardboard lunar module and joyfully bounding through his own moon walk after watching Neil Armstrong's first steps on a fuzzy blackand-white television. Throughout, the boy uses soccer balls, string and other everyday objects to explain underlying concepts such as thrust and landing angles. Working in a crisply delineated digital style that gives shapes an almost 3-D quality, Gall balances densely explanatory pages with wide-angle scenes filled with tension and drama. Readers who want close-ups of fuel cells and docking components will find those specifics, while others can take in the miraculous big picture: the small silver capsules traveling through blackest-black space. Best of all, Gall's young narrator shows how leaps of imagination can transform the grandest milestones into the most personal experiences. IN ANTICIPATION OF this summer's anniversary, Brian Floca set out to update his extraordinary 2009 account of the first moon landing, which was named a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book that year, among other awards. He emerged from the project with a substantially expanded edition, which includes eight new pages of artwork and additional text. The newly revised moonshot: the FLIGHT OF APOLLO 11 (Richard Jackson/Atheneum, 56 pp., $19.99; ages 4 to 10) IS even more glorious than the original, and also more inclusive. Whereas the 2009 edition focused on the three astronauts, here there are more vignettes of the diverse men and women - white, black and brown - whose ingenuity and labor made the mission possible: the "thousands of people, / for millions of parts." New lines of text retain the grace and clarity of Floca's economical free verse while adding information, such as the tricky logistics of spacecraft rendezvous. And as before, Floca's artwork remains an extraordinary delight for a reader of any age. Like the astronauts' own photographs, his expansive, heart-stopping images convey the unfathomable beauty of both the bright, dusty moon and the blue jewel of Earth. SEVERAL NEW BOOKS focus on individuals rather than overviews of the big event. Suzanne Slade's a computer called Katherine: HOW KATHERINE JOHNSON HELPED PUT AMERICA ON THE MOON (Little, Brown, 40 pp., $18.99; ages 4 to 8) picks up the story of the "human computers," of "Hidden Figures" fame. Slade, a mechanical engineer who has worked on rockets for NASA and the Air Force, brings deep background knowledge to her biography of Johnson, an African-American math prodigy who overcame barriers of race and gender to become a profoundly influential member of the Apollo missions' team. Slade writes with appealing rhythm and repetition, and she folds in a clever game of false equations to emphasize moments of injustice: Limited beliefs about women's professional roles, for example, are "as wrong as 10 - 5 = 3." In her picture-book debut, the illustrator Veronica Miller Jamison mixes neatly composed, straightforward action with inventive, swirling images dramatizing Johnson's brilliant calculations. The story is followed by an informational spread that includes a rousing quote from Johnson: "Girls are capable of doing everything men are capable of doing." The astronaut Alan Bean was the fourth person, and the first artist, to walk on the moon. Written with assistance from Bean, Dean Robbins's the astronaut who PAINTED THE MOON: THE TRUE STORY OF ALAN BEAN (Orchard/Scholastic, 40 pp., $17.99; ages 4 to 8) intersperses action scenes from the Apollo 12 mission with moments from Bean's life, as he learns to combine his love of flight with his urgent wish to "paint what he saw." After returning to Earth, Bean is disappointed with photographs that fail to capture the moon's "barren beauty." So, with color and imagination, he paints "how stunning outer space looked through his eyes. How it made him feel." A final striking spread pairs reproductions of photographs taken by Apollo 12's astronauts and Bean's paintings of the same scenes. The astronauts are friendly, relatable characters in Sean Rubin's jewel-colored, crosshatched artwork, which smooths out narrative shifts with skillfully extended motifs, including aircraft that transform from model airplanes to Air Force fighters to the Apollo 12 rocket as the pages turn. And as in Bean's paintings, a brilliant palette animates the scenes of space with vibrant, palpable energy. More than an account of a singular figure, Robbins's notable biography is a beautiful reminder that science and art are a vital combination and, together, can create new understanding. OF COURSE, for some children, the details of the Apollo missions may seem as dull and unappealing as freeze-dried food. Young kids, especially preschoolers, may want to start with something more familiar - the moon itself. Susanna Leonard Hill's MOON'S FIRST FRIENDS: ONE GIANT LEAP FOR FRIENDSHIP (Sourcebooks, 40 pp., $17.99; ages 3 to 6) sparks lunar interest with an age-old approach: Put a face on it. Forget the Man in the Moon (or the rabbit). This cheerful title introduces a rosy-cheeked, eye-lashed "Queen of the Night Sky," lonely after 4.5 billion years of silvery bright solitude. Humans' experiments with early air flight get her hopes up, but alas; she remains alone, despite her efforts to attract attention, including a solar eclipse. Then, "one hot July day," visitors arrive. Elisa Paganelli's textured digital artwork extends the winsome story with a cozy version of space, a soothing, star-speckled blue rather than bottomless black, and watched over by the eager, anthropomorphized "queen," who cheers as the Eagle lands right between her eyes. The book's substantial back matter about the Apollo 11 mission seems aimed at older siblings, rather than the story's primary young audience. A more immediate connection might come from a QR code printed on the endpapers, which leads to NASA's sound file of Neil Armstrong's first words after his ever-astonishing "one small step." GILLIAN ENGBERG is a former editorial director of books for youth at Booklist.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 14, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Math came easy to Katherine Johnson while she was growing up. In the 1950s, when she was in her 30s, she was hired at NASA as a computer (a female mathematician who assisted the male engineers) and eventually worked her way up to the Apollo 11 project. Vignettes of Katherine's work familiar to aficionados of the 2016 film Hidden Figures depict her talent with calculations, the drama of early space travel, and the way both combined to put humans on the moon. There are a few missed opportunities just how groundbreaking Katherine's work was for the time, given her gender and race, isn't fully conveyed. Still, Slade, herself a rocket engineer, cleverly integrates topical concepts within the text, and the strong back matter includes a time line and source notes. For younger readers, the racist arguments Katherine's African American family faces are depicted as being as wrong as 5 + 5 = 12. Wide pages offer appropriate room for the engaging mixed-media illustrations (don't miss the endpapers!), which wonderfully introduce, depict, and honor this STEM heroine.--Andrew Medlar Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Slade explores the life of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. Johnson excelled in mathematics beginning in childhood but was frustrated by the lack of opportunities available to women of her era. Her perseverance and skills led her to work at a Virginia research center, where she made complex calculations, advocated for her right to attend meetings with male engineers, and eventually joined the NASA space team. Slade writes in clear, up-tempo prose, well paired with Jamison's expressive mixed-media art, which presents Johnson as a self-assured figure in bright, jewel-toned clothing. Spreads also feature chalky mathematical computations, and the launch of Apollo 11-guided by Johnson's meticulous calculations-is presented dynamically across three panels. An uplifting portrait of a no longer so "hidden" figure. Ages 4-8. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-Even as a child, Katherine Johnson loved numbers. She skipped through school, took a job as part of a team of number crunchers called "calculators," and helped figure out the trajectory of early space flights of the 1960s, even after machine computing became a part of the process. This retelling of Johnson's achievements focuses on her path as a black female mathematician. The book devotes a spread to the civil rights struggle, illustrating how people were divided about school integration; it also shows that many disagreed about whether women should work at jobs traditionally held by men. Jamison stresses how Johnson's talent for math broke both barriers. Covering much of the same ground as Helaine Becker's Counting on Katherine, the text is relatively straightforward and accessible even to listeners not yet ready for the inclusion of incorrect math problems, such as "25 ÷ 5 = 4," used as examples of how wrong some people's assumptions were. First-time illustrator Jamison relies on ink, watercolor, marker, and colored pencil to create spreads that emphasize math concepts. Often there's a faint background of the geometric images and equations shown on the end papers. Back matter includes author and artist notes about their personal connection to the subject, quotes from Johnson herself, and sources and credits. VERDICT Another appealing picture book biography of a successful woman; a strong choice for most collections.-Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Math genius Katherine Johnson (ne Coleman) was a star student, twice skipping a grade before her family moved 120 miles for her to attendat age tena high school that allowed African American students to enroll. After graduating from West Virginia State Collegeat age eighteenshe became a math teacher. In 1953, Katherine started work as a computer, or mathematician, for Langley Aeronautical Laboratory in Virginia (part of what would become NASA). Her lightning-fast problem-solving skills and keen questions soon landed her a spot on the space team. She showed upon purposefor the teams men-only meeting and wowed them with her geometry expertise. During her career, Johnson calculated Alan Shepards First-American-in-Space flight path; verified, at John Glenns request, Glenns First-American-to-Orbit-Earth trajectory; and planned, double-checked, and approved Apollo 11s Race-to-the-Moon-and-Back flight path. Inspiring, upbeat, and clever, Slades text deliberately includes incorrect equations, printed in red ink, to cleverly highlight the racism, sexism, and other false beliefs that Johnson confronted. Back then, people said women could only be teachers or nurses. Katherine knew that was wrongas wrong as 10 5 = 3. Equations, along with angles and diagrams, also fill Jamisons expressive, layered illustrations. The 2016 book and movie Hidden Figures put Johnson in the spotlight; to help keep her there?and inspire future mathematicians?share this and Helaine Beckers Counting on Katherine with the picture-book-biography crowd. Images from Johnsons work, a timeline, author and illustrator notes, and a list of sources are appended. tanya d. auger July/Aug p.149(c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Katherine Johnson had a passion for numbers and made herself indispensable to the early space program.On the heels of the acclaimed book Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly (2016), and the film of the same name, this picture book tells of one of NASA's human computers, Katherine Johnson. Katherine skipped both first and fifth grades because of her math skills, which put her ahead of her older brother in school. She finished eighth grade at age 10 and started college at 15. Throughout this compellingly told biography, the narrator compares social wrongs to miscalculated math problems, as in the sexist belief that "women could only be teachers or nurses. Katherine knew that was wrongas wrong as 10 - 5 = 3." She also objected to segregation and to her exclusion from meetings at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory that had only ever been attended by men. Because she broke barriers that sought to limit her abilities, Katherine stands as an important example of persisting to make change. Illustrator Jamison beautifully conveys in illuminating watercolors both how much Katherine enjoyed numbers and how determined she was to succeed in a male-dominated field. Informative backmatter includes a historical timeline and notes from the author and illustrator.An excellent way to introduce young readers to an African-American female mathematician who deserves to be remembered and celebrated. (Picture book/biography. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
