The author's note at the end gives a personal insight to the author and her association with NASA as a child. She grew up in Florida and her father worked at Cape Canaveral. Her account of watching launches growing up serves a perfect personal tie-in for the closing of the book. If you ask anyone about the topic of 'astronauts' and the 'moon' the frequent return of data starts with 'Neil Armstrong'. Before reading this book much of my knowledge of the moon landings were hazy and my ability to recall the 12 men who have walked on the moon extremely limited. Chaikin explores the lives of the Apollo astronauts in detail and as a reader I found this personal development crucial. Unfortunately, the future I envisioned and hoped for (and which showcased itself spectacularly in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey) never materialized. The last manned lunar flight was 47 years ago, in 1972. Today, of the 12 men who walked on the moon, only four are still alive. Of the additional 14 men who went to the moon without setting foot on it, only eight are still living. All of these living lunar explorers are now very old. I feel fortunate to have witnessed such a unique and great achievement in my lifetime. But, as NASA administrator George Low said to retiring lunar astronaut Stu Roosa, “You know, there will never be another Apollo in anybody’s life.”

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? 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.”

Once MiM sets about his mission of making the children of Earth happy I got really lost in the story. The tale brings together Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and many other familiar childhood figures. It even tells how MiM set about lighting up the moon so the children of Earth never had to be afraid of the night again. My children absolutely loved the appearance of all the figures and it definitely got them asking questions about each of them. We all hope that there will be a book for each Guardian and will be anxiously awaiting the arrival of more books! Creating your own alien, what colour, how many arms, legs and eyes, are they wearing clothes, what do those look like- are they human clothes or something different? The Blue Peter book of the year 2004 is well written and illustrated by Simon Bartram. Bold and colourful pictures in the story add well to the simple yet humorous tale that Bob journeys on day by day.

Another fine account is Chaikin's re-telling of the landing pad fire aboard Apollo 1, which killed Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. It is one of the saddest moments in the history of the Apollo program, and Chaikin manages to strike a balance between respect for the fallen and the investigation that came to see the accident as a "failure of imagination." He avoids the temptation of the maudlin, and the three dead astronauts would undoubtedly have appreciated that. 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.

Help

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. My favorite passage relates the thoughts of Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders after he had just seen and photographed the earth as no human had ever done before – in its entirety, from the distance of the moon: Aside from explaining the technicalities of trans-lunar injection Chaikin does something more throughout this book. He allows the reader to see beyond the public image of what an astronaut is and understand their inner thoughts. How they felt preparing for each mission, the emotions and thoughts they experienced on the moon and the loss some of them felt once they returned to earth. When astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their 'giant leap for mankind' across a ghostly lunar landscape, they were watched by some 600 million people on Earth 240,000 miles away.