Daring Dozen: The Twelve Who Walked on the Moon

In gentle vignettes, Slade describes each Apollo moon mission in order. “Year after year the moon circles Earth./ All alone,” until one day, the Apollo 11 spacecraft appears and “finally it touches the ground.” For each mission, Marks’s watercolor art captures the majesty of space, with dramatic depictions of the spacecraft being maneuvered and astronauts walking the moon’s surface. The Apollo 13 astronauts peer anxiously through the window of their injured ship; the Apollo 17 astronauts collect soil; and on the Apollo 14 mission, Alan Shepard plays a round of golf on the moon’s surface. A final illustration shows two children gazing at the “steadfast moon” through a telescope. Substantial back matter, with a timeline and an afterword from astronaut Alan Bean, concludes this reflective and informative portrait of the U.S. moon missions. Ages 5–9. [em](Mar.) [/em]