Thursday, June 4, 2009

Giving the Past Immediacy

Children love to hear about historic events when they are told with lots of action, and edge-of-your-seat excitement.

Brian Floca does just that with his book Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11. He makes those eight days in July 1969 seem as if they are happening right now, as you turn the pages together. Maybe it’s because, as a boy, Floca was so amazed by that maiden voyage to the Moon. In my interview with him, Floca said that this book was 10 years in the making and that he had to set aside some of the details he found so fascinating in order to keep the text simple.

The author-artist demonstrates his artistic process with a YouTube video on his Web site and also offers downloadable coloring pages so children can make their own images of the space journey, plus he talks about previous Apollo missions—some of which have related YouTube footage available.

If ever you wanted to talk with youngsters about these extraordinary journeys through space, this book provides the perfect launchpad (pun intended) for such discussions.

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