Friday, August 24, 2018

A is for Astronaut: Blasting Through the Alphabet by Clayton Anderson - OPTIONAL


A is for Astronaut: Blasting Through the Alphabet by Clayton Anderson, illustrated by Scott Brundage.  NON-FICTION/PICTURE BOOK Sleeping Bear Press, 2018. $17.  9781585363964  

BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3-), EL – OPTIONAL 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

Each letter of the alphabet explains a different element of space travel.  Some of the letters explain parts of the space shuttles or the outfits and other letters explain terms used (such as Zulu).  There is a 4-6 line poem that includes the space term as well as a hefty 3-4 paragraph informational side bar for every letter.  

I tried to read this book with my 8 year old and he asked me to stop reading after the second letter.  The illustrations are amazing and grab your attention, but the amount of informational text is overwhelming and the vocabulary to hard for younger readers to understand.  I thought I would just read the poems to my son, but he even got bored with that.  Maybe a real space lover could enjoy this book, but your average reader is going to be turned off by the amount of text and an older reader is going to feel like the picture book is too babyish.  That said the informational text was super interesting and I, as an adult, enjoyed it.

C. Peterson

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