Moon's First Friends: One Giant Leap for Friendship

Hill imagines the Apollo 11 moon landing from the perspective of the moon itself. In Paganelli's friendly illustrations, the moon is an anthropomorphic, bright-eyed blue sphere with rosy cheeks who communicates with the changing world throughout history. Despite how she tries to make friends, from saber-toothed tigers to early air balloonists, all of Earth's denizens remain planet-bound. Not even an early airplane can reach her, and "a chimpanzee in a Mercury capsule... returned to Earth without reaching her." At last, the moon meets the astronauts of Apollo 11: "The astronauts walked across her surface with great bounding steps that made her dust bloom." Hill concludes this light moon-landing story with back matter, including photographs, a timeline of the Earth's eras, and details about the Apollo 11 mission. Ages 4-8. (June)

K-Gr 2--The Moon gets anthropomorphized in this celebration of the lunar landing. The Moon is the queen of the night sky, but she gets lonely and wishes for a friend. Finally, two astronauts visit, and the Moon gifts them with rocks and dust while they leave her a "handsome plaque" and a "beautiful flag." Too soon they have to leave, but the Moon is left with the hope that she'll host visitors again. This book could be used to introduce the Moon landing to very young audiences, but in its quest for simplicity, a lot of useful information is excluded. The Moon tries to get humanity's attention by traveling in front of the Sun, leaving her shadow on Earth, but the concept of eclipses isn't touched on even in the endnotes. The Moon gets excited when a chimpanzee travels in space in a "United States" branded Mercury capsule, and the American flag is prominently planted on its surface right before the astronauts leave, but there is no mention of the space race or any of the Soviet Union's accomplishments. The five pages of endnotes do offer some more comprehensive information on the Moon and details on the Apollo 11 voyage. VERDICT An additional purchase for large collections.--Kacy Helwick, New Orleans Public Library