Space Shuttle Blasts Off! by Peter Bently- OPTIONAL

Bently, Peter. Space Shuttle Blasts Off!, PICTURE BOOK. QEB Publishing Inc., 2015. $14.95. A crew of panda bears is blasting off on a space shuttle to fix a broken satellite. All of the pre-blast of procedures are covered with descriptions of what happens to the equipment once the shuttle enters space. The pandas fix the satellite but find that it is actually an alien spaceship. Once they send the aliens on their way, the fix the real broken satellite and land back on Earth, only to find that one of the aliens has stowed away on their ship and they need to blast off once again. I was intrigued by this book at the beginning. It has clear illustrations and good descriptions of the blast off process and space shuttle. But I was thrown off by the inclusion of the alien ship. I think the point was to grab young reader’s attention, but it seemed unnecessary. A diagram of the shuttle with labels at the back of the book, added to the appeal of the book. There are also other space vehicle pictures provided in the back as well. K-3- OPTIONAL. Reviewed by Shay, High School Librarian.