Man on the Moon: a day in the life of Bob

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Andrew Chaikin does an exceptional job of recounting the Apollo missions, ensuring that it is not all about Neil, Buzz and "What's-his-name?" (Michael Collins, for anyone who's interested). Have you ever wondered who or what lived on the moon? William Joyce's debut The Man in The Moon not only introduces to the jolly man who lives there (nope I'm not talking Santa Claus), he'll also tell you how he got there. We're huge fans of the moon in our home, and I can say for certainty that next time we're looking up at the moon, we'll all be looking for the wonderful man in the moon, the guardian of children. In the movie, Man in Moon (MiM) as North calls him, is an enigma; a shadowy figure who they know much about but the viewer ignorant of the books knows little about. So I was very excited to pierce the shadow, so to speak, surrounding this seemingly important character. I really enjoyed this book. As the title suggests, it is about a day in the life of Bob, a man who lives on Earth but works on the Moon. The illustrations are interesting and there are lots of things that could be discussed with the children. In particular, aliens are hidden in every picture but the story says Bob knows “there’s no such thing as aliens.” I think children would find this amusing and would enjoy looking for the aliens in each picture. Also, can use the ‘day in the life’ style of the book to talk about telling the time- the book does refer to the time, such as Bob having lunch at twelve-thirty.

The story is told in third person which allows the reader to feel that they are following Bob closely, allowing them to warm to the character, making him likeable. The story is set in the style of “a day in the life” and uses time to show this. This technique makes it easy for children to follow as it allows them to relate it to their day to day life, such as getting up and having breakfast and having a bath before going to bed. Children love clueless Bob and the aliens who ‘aren’t really there’. Bob is as silly as he looks and it is fun to play with the idea of a grown up with such an important job (keeping the moon clean and tidy and performing for space tourists) can be so oblivious to what we can see (as the adult, it’s fun to pretend you can’t see them too). This worked really well as a class text with year 1 children, lots of opportunities to explore inference and dramatic irony and both the story and the beautiful oil painting illustrations capture their imagination enough to provide a term’s worth of activities alongside topic exploration: Perhaps I am a little biased, though. As an expatriate Yankee, one who is shamed and saddened by much of what my country has done, the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions are one of the few things my country did in the Twentieth Century (and so far in the Twenty-First) for which I am actually proud. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with the astronauts and mission personnel, this is the story of the twentieth century's greatest human achievement, minute-by-minute, through the eyes of those who were there. Before the moon landings,there is the story of Gemini and the tragedy of Apollo 1,whose crew was killed on the ground in a training accident.There were other astronauts,who were killed in flying accidents,before their space missions.Creative writing- there are so many opportunities for creative writing tasks as a direct result of looking at this book. For example, writing postcards as if they were visiting the moon, writing tourist leaflets all about the moon (perhaps in collaboration with science lessons), writing Bob’s job description and then applying for that job etc. There is also the story of Alan Shepard,who managed to get the command of Apollo 14,at the ripe age of 47,much to the dismay of the others,who had been waiting in line. This tale starts off perfectly happy but once Pitch, the King of Nightmares, finds out that this boy has never had a nightmare he vows to make the boy his own and deem him the Prince of Nightmares. In the outcome of the battle the boy is left alone on the moon to be raised by the Moonbots, Moonmice and giant Glowworms who were also left behind. As he grows, he discovers the planet Earth through his father's telescope & realises that there are children on the far away planet that are much like him. As the children's lost balloons float up to him he finds that he can hear their hopes and dreams if he held them to his ear. Upcoming works to be published in May 2009 are Voices from the Moon (Viking Studio) featuring excerpts from his conversations with Apollo astronauts, and Mission Control, This is Apollo (Viking Childrens) a book for middle-school readers illustrated with paintings by Apollo moonwalker Alan Bean. What a personally powerful book. A Man on the Moon is such a wonderful reminder of what we are capable of as a species and what wonderful things we can accomplish when we work together. I hope to see a man on the moon in my lifetime, although I doubt it will happen, which is a shame.

My audiobook was 23 hours long, and I don’t recommend it. The narrator, actor Bronson Pinchot, has won several Audie Awards, one of them for this book. I find this a little surprising. For me it was an extremely dull experience to listen to him. The only time I remember hearing some excitement in his voice was when the matter of urinating in space came up. Incidentally a thing I got excited about as well. I guess observed from afar those kinds of experiences are just too damn funny. Chaikin talks about the spiritual awakening that astronauts experienced once they walked on the moon and looked up into the bleak lunar sky to see the earth floating above them. So much so was this feeling one astronaut left NASA on his return to earth to set up a christian religious outreach organisation. This book is about the scientific discovery that changed the USA's production in the scientific and technological communities. This Guardians of Childhood series is so fantastic. I read the Sandman first and now this is the Man in the moon. William is creating new modern myths with some of the most beautiful artwork. His work brings magic to life. Children can feel this awesome light beneath the surface as they read his book. I want to own this series as they are so fantastic and I can only ask why hasn't William Joyce won some Caldecott's. Why wasn't this on the list. This is one of the best things I have read and several of Williams books are worthy of being recognized. Good resource for the study of space- starting talk about the different planets, the fact that in space there is not gravity, the distance between Earth and the moon, among other planets.Bartram has a whole series of books about Bob and space, so there gives easy opportunity to explore the world more if students are interested in doing so independently. The book itself does remind me of another picture book I have read, ‘Aliens Love Underpants’ by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort, which I have read before with a pre-school group. There is the obvious link between aliens being a key feature, but the thing that really made me relate the two books is the art and colours used to illustrate the aliens. In Freedman’s book aliens exist peacefully on Earth, much like in Bartram’s book, and not a scary invader of the planet as aliens are often perceived in society. Finally,Gene Cernan who commanded Apollo 17,became the last man to stop on the moon.The last three moon missions,Apollo 18,19 and 20 were scrapped,given their enormous cost. The personal stories of the astronauts are fascinating.What was amiss,however,was sufficient mention of the competing Soviet space programme.