Exploring the Moon: A Space Trip Into the Future (1969)

 

Happy Moon Day!

This is the cover of the April 1969 issue of Children's Digest. They would publish short book excepts and articles for children. I thought I would celebrate this day by sharing an article about the coming landing written from the perspective of a couple of years before.

The cover artwork was by the famous space artist Robert McCall.

The article is excepted from a 1965 Book called "The Question and Answer Book of Space". I blogged about it back in 2009 here: https://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2009/06/question-and-answer-book-of-space-1965.html

So this is exactly the kind of thing I was reading at ages 7 and 8. It was lacking in many details but I knew what was coming by the time July 1969 arrived. So join me on a little throw-back to a far-away time.

This last little box in the article brings it all back to me....

Moon Adventure Coloring Story Book (1974)

 

Moon Adventure Coloring Story Book is very funny but not for the right reasons. It is poor drawn and inaccurate. It feels like "product" for parents to buy their child just to give them something about spaceflight.  So bad it is good! But also worth sharing as part of my mission to find all this spaceflight stuff for children. Enjoy!

Moon Adventure Coloring Story Book. Brooklyn, NY : Balan Industries, Inc. ( 64 p.) 1974.

Always bring your Sherpas to the Moon....

A is For Astronaut: A Classroom "Tribute" to Apollo 16 mission (1972)

This is a pleasantly unique item. In  1971-1972 a teacher led their 2nd grade class in creating a class project about Apollo 16.  The mission was in April 1972 but from markings in this scrapbook/artist's book they had been studying the mission all school year (1971-1972)

I am fascinated by the artists' naive approach to illustrating what they knew about the mission. I also like how each of the artists developed a simple image for each of the 26 letters.  (Although there were 27 images since they had 1 more student than letter.)

 I especially like "K is for Kicking Rocks"