Lumping space travelers of the 16 participating nations together as “’nauts,” the editors of Yes magazine take young readers on a tour of the International Space Station and introduce the three members of its first crew, while providing glimpses of daily routines and ongoing scientific work. Thickly illustrated with space photos, portraits of ’nauts, and cartoon-style incidental art, all surrounding a breezy text written in bite-sized sentences, this isn’t the most detailed of visits, but it does impart a vivid sense of the dangers station residents face, from solar radiation to bone loss, as well as the whole enterprise’s present and future rewards. And, though there is no resource list to spark further enquiry, five simple science activities, plus an entire page of acronyms—“The Secret Language of Space”— give this a leg up over Franklyn Branley’s primer-level International Space Station (2000). (timeline, index) (Nonfiction. 8-10)
