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THE APOLLO MISSIONS FOR KIDS by Jerome Pohlen

THE APOLLO MISSIONS FOR KIDS

The People and Engineering Behind the Race to the Moon, with 21 Activities

From the For Kids series

by Jerome Pohlen

Pub Date: June 4th, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-912777-17-7
Publisher: Chicago Review Press

A frank account of our early space program’s ups and downs, with 21 low-tech, hands-on activities.

Readers old enough to be drawn in to Pohlen’s mission-by-mission accounts of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs will likely find the interspersed projects—which range from making a balloon-powered rocket that runs along a string to chucking pebbles into a bowl of light and dark powders to create “craters”—laughably rudimentary. Fortunately, the author’s picture of the brilliant if too-often-slapdash effort that ultimately sent 24 men to the moon and brought them all back is compelling enough to survive distractions. Along with taking due note of the thousands of people, not all of them white or male, who labored to solve the program’s massive technological and logistical challenges, he humanizes the astronauts with frequent references to their families. Plenty of period photos, accounts of memorable incidents en route (“On the mission’s first day, Frank Borman vomited in the equipment bay. Lovell watched a chunky blob the size of a tennis ball float up”), exuberant quotes from mission transcripts (Pete Conrad: “Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me!”), and glimpses of their post-Apollo pursuits further this effect as well.

An engrossing portrayal of “a bold, complicated, dangerous, and expensive adventure,” at once broad in scope and rich in specific details.

(index, glossary, endnotes, multimedia resources) (Nonfiction. 11-13)