To the Moon and Back: My Apollo 11 Adventure

by Buzz Aldrin, Marianne Dyson, Bruce Foster (Illustrator)

Overview

In celebration of the Apollo 11 Mission's 50th Anniversary, experience the awe and excitement of humankind's first steps on the moon! In this exclusive, exquisite pop-up adventure, readers follow astronaut Buzz Aldrin's story as he encounters the "magnificent desolation" of Earth's only satellite firsthand.

Preeminent paper engineer Bruce Foster brings to life what it was like to blast off into space and take the first steps on the moon through intricate pop-ups and paper folds.

Including Buzz Aldrin's firsthand accounts of the mission, historical context, stunning images, and unique personal perspectives, this book is an informative and collectible work of art—perfect for budding astronauts and grandparents hoping to share their memories of the moon landing with the young explorers in their lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781426332494
Publisher:	National Geographic
Publication date:	10/16/2018
Pages:	16
Sales rank:	142,483
Product dimensions:	9.70(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

BUZZ ALDRIN speaks out as a vital advocate for the continuing quest to expand the frontier of space. He has achieved hero status as a pioneering astronaut who first set foot on the moon during mankind's first landing of Apollo 11 and as a rocket scientist who developed the orbital rendezvous technique critical to America's moon landings and the Aldrin Mars Cycler.

MARIANNE DYSON is an award-winning author and former NASA flight controller. She has a degree in physics and became one of NASA's first women flight controllers during the early Space Shuttle program. She has won the Golden Kite Award and the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award for her children's books. Her science articles and science fiction stories for adults and children have appeared in national magazines and anthologies. She has served as a technical reviewer for Scholastic and Enslow, and as a National Geographic Explorer.

Paper engineer extraordinaire BRUCE FOSTER has created over 40 pop-up books and has been called a "paper magic master."

Editorial Reviews

2018-09-30

The second man to walk on the moon tells his tale amid historical photos and pop-up spacecraft.

Aldrin offers a brief account of his astronautical career from a Gemini 12 spacewalk through Apollo 11's splashdown, with overviews of other Gemini and Apollo missions, brief glances at some Soyuz missions, and a closing pep talk about future landings on Mars. Anecdotes, mostly about narrowly averted disasters ("We couldn't get the pole more than a few inches onto the soil. I was afraid the flag would fall over with half a billion people watching!"), in the narrative and reminiscences by the astronaut's daughter, Jan, on slide-out panels add immediacy to events that occurred half a century ago. Sheaves of photos and space art likewise make the experience vivid. The pop-ups incorporate some of the former but are inexpertly designed: The fronts of both a Gemini capsule and the spacesuit floating nearby are the same as the backs, major visible portions of the Eagle lander are just blank areas, and an abstract swirl that's supposed to represent rocket exhaust at the base of a Saturn V lifting off doesn't look like much of anything. Also, three of the five slide-out panels are blank on one side, and a multipiece punch-out standee of the Eagle is just laid in loose, sans sleeve or storage pocket.

A stirring first-person account of "humanity's greatest adventure" marred by distractingly unvarnished special effects. (Informational pop-up. 8-11)

Kirkus Reviews