20th July International Moon Day

International Moon Day marks the anniversary of the first landing by humans on the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 lunar mission. This is an important event to commemorate, but I have done a blog entry on it before. I want to look at how else the moon appears in children's picture books. It is often personified and the reader gets to hear how it feels. It is also often associated with magic and night mischief.

Today I want to look at three moon stories that I love sharing with students where the moon has a very different role from being a place that astronauts visit. Rather it is something awe-inspiring, magical and even endearing.

1. Happy Birthday, Moon  by Frank Asch. Students love the fact that they have knowledge that the main character, Moonbear does not have. Some even shout out while I am reading to tell you that Moonbear doesn't understand how the moon works. Then when it comes to the echoing parts they have even more to say. It is a good example of the reader having the power, not the author or the main character.

2. Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle. It is Monica's wish to have the moon play with her and her papa tries to get it for her, not an easy task, but one a father tries in order to please his daughter. The paper engineering works with the suspense of the story and keeps the reader invested in the outcome. This book gets tatty in a library very quickly because of the pages that open outward and upward, but we replace it regularly so it can be loved all over again.

3. Ace Dragon Ltd by Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake. When I first read this book to a class, I had a small reader-size book which was mainly black and white, but nevertheless the story worked a treat. Years later  it was republished in a bigger format and with more colour. This made it even easier to maintain the students interest in the sword-wielding John and a dragon named Ace when they venture off into space. They land on the moon and have quite a quandary to solve.

Four well loved author illustrators, Frank Asch, Eric Carle, Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake, all with classic stories that have really gone the distance with young children!

Some other picture books where the moon holds magic for a young protagonist:

• Imani's Moon  by JaNay Brown-Wood and Hazel Mitchell

• Kiwi Moon  by Gavin Bishop

• The Moonkeeper  by Zosienka   (Zofia "Zosienka" Gibbs)

• Do You Speak English Moon?  by Francesca Simon and Ben Court

And if you do want to commemorate the moon landing, but from a slightly different viewpoint look for:

• A Kite for Moon by Jane Yolen, Heidi E. Y. Stemple and Matt Phelan

A young boy, seeing that Moon is lonely, sends up a kite to cheer her up, then after growing up and learning many things, he becomes the first human to visit her. Dedicated to Neil Armstrong and written in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of the first U.S. moon landing.

• I Am the Moon by Nanae Aoyama and Satoe Tone 

The Moon finds that she is lonely and in need of a friend. She leaves her place in space and travels to Earth, in search of an astronaut who visited her many years ago.

20th July 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing (Part 2)

In the book Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon author Catherine  Thimmesh gives  a rare perspective on a story we only thought we knew. 'For Apollo 11, the first moon landing, is a story that belongs to many, not just the few and famous. It belongs to the seamstress who put together twenty-two layers of fabric for each space suit. To the engineers who created a special heat shield to protect the capsule during its fiery reentry. It belongs to the flight directors, camera designers, software experts, suit testers, telescope crew, aerospace technicians, photo developers, engineers, and navigators.' 

I love picture book biographies and the subject of the moon landing has been well written about for children. There are biographies about Armstrong and Aldrin, but perhaps you haven't seen some of the other amazing biographies that tell the stories of other people who have been involved in the quest to get to the moon either before Apollo 11 or after. Many of them were woman and continue to be women. They help to show what Thimmesh contends, that there are so many other people involved.




• Reaching For the Moon by Buzz Aldrin and Wendell Minor
• Look to the Stars by Buzz Aldrin and Wendell Minor 
• One Giant Leap: the Story of Neil Armstrong  by Don Brown



• Margaret and the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Saved the First Lunar Landing  by Dean Robbins and Lucy Knisley






• Hidden Figures: The True Story of  Four Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly and Laura Freeman



• Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13  by Helaine Becker and Dow Phumiruk

• A Computer Called Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Helped Put America on the Moon by Suzanne Spade and Veronica Miller Jamison

• Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed and Stasia Burrington

20th July 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing (Part 1)

Fifty years ago, on July, 20th, 1969 everyone watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the moon. I was one of the watchers. I was in my first year of high school and the whole school gathered in the school hall to watch a very small black and white television that was on a trolley on the stage. We sat in age order, the older Year 12s at the front of the hall back to Year 7 at the back. As you can imagine I saw nothing, but the significance of the moment was not lost on me. After all the moon is the only place in our solar system that humans have visited. Recently I had lunch with a group of girls I went to school with and we laughed as we reminisced about this occasion. 

Several new picture books have been published to commemorate this occasion, so I put together a large display of books in my library to share the occasion with today's students and their parents. They have been very slow to move out of the library and I am hoping that once they have been exposed to more of it on the television and internet, that they will come back after the school holidays and be more enthusiastic about borrowing them. In the past the young students I teach have been very interested in space, but not so much anymore.

Among the new books are

• Moonwalkers  by Mark Greenwood and Terry Denton
• Touch the Moon  by Phil Cummings and Coral Tulloch
• When We Walked on the Moon by David Long and Sam Kalda
• Moon! Earth's Best Friend by Stacy McAnulty
• Moonshot by Brian Floca (an expanded and reissued version of a book published ten years ago)
• Moon's First Friends: One Giant Leap for Friendship by Susannah Leonard Hill and Elisa Paganelli
• Go For the Moon: A Rocket, a Boy and the First Moon Landing  by Chris Gall
• The Usborne Book of the Moon  by Laura Cowan and Diana Toledana

And if you don't have access to these new books perhaps revisit some of the gems from the past like
• The Sea of Tranquility by Mark Haddon and Christian Birmingham
• One Giant Leap by Robert Burleigh and Mark Wimmer
• If You Decide to Go to the Moon  by Faith McNulty and Steven Kellogg
• Grandpa Takes Me to the Moon  by Timothy R. Gaffney and Barry Root
• Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moon  by Torben Kuhlmann

21st July

Yesterday, the 20th July was the anniversary of the First Moon Landing. The Apollo II landing occurred in 1969 and to the children of today, probably it does not feel like the big deal it was for my generation of children. However there are many wonderful books that tell this story in pictures and texts that are very accessible to young children. Look for these factual texts:

• Reaching For the Moon by Buzz Aldrin and Wendell Minor

• Moonshot by Brian Floca

The following are stories about going to the moon:

• Grandpa Take Me to the Moon by Timothy R. Gaffney and Barry Root

• Footprints on the Moon by Mark Haddon and Christian Birmingham

• The Sea of Tranquility by Mark Haddon and Christian Birmingham

• If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNulty and Steven Kellog

• I Wish I'd Gone to the Moon with Neil Armstrong by Leonie Young and Avril Janks