When We Walked on the Moon by David Long and Sam Kalda (Non-fiction, Children's, 10E/10E)

 June 2019, The Quarto Group, 80 pages, Hardback, Review copy

Summary from press release

This book tells the story of the Apollo Missions, when incredible intelligence, engineering and bravery allowed humans to stand on the surface of something other than Earth for the very first time. From the 1969 first moon landing to the amazing rescue of Apollo 13, each chapter tells the story of a different mission.

Nayu's thoughts 

While I am not space obsessed, I appreciate the immense achievement it was to get to the moon, so figured that since it is the 50th anniversary year of the moon landing I would review this book. It had me captivated as I read mission after mission. I knew that astronauts had to do scientific work, but I didn't know details for each Apollo mission, including the agonising Apollo 13 mission which had a film made about it. This book was fun to read. I thought I might dip in and out, as non-fiction books can be ones that I can only handle in small doses, but I read it straight through without a break! 

Learning about all the innovations that space travel involved, the immense challenges both astronauts and engineers faced made me more in awe of the world we live in. Even golf clubs made it to the moon! A lot of the astronauts from the Apollo era have died: there's information on who they are and what they did after going into space which was fascinating to read, more so when one of them went to space more than once in their lifetime. I do understand that money restricts further moon travel, but it would be so cool if they went to the moon again one day. 

There are oodles of colourful pictures in the book, which convey the emotions of the various scenes well. Sometimes the illustrations cover all the page, sometimes just a part of the stage. The writing is clear and easy to read, with good sized margins. At first glance I thought there would be less writing than there was, but it is chock full of facts and information. The way the chapters are divided up makes it easy to reference particular events, making it a perfect research book for school work. It made me more aware of what happened in space exploration, and has me hoping for future developments in space travel. 

Find out more on David's website and Sam's website.

Suggested read

For more space facts check out Jasper: Space Dog by Hilary Robinson and Lewis James (Children's, 7 years +, 10E/10E)