‘Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo’

Written and Illustrated by Brian Flocca.

So this month I am, dare I say it… ‘cheating’ a little bit, as this book review was mainly done by my eldest son, Lochie. He is currently exploring the topic of ‘space’ in school and was asked to choose an activity to complete at home that linked back to this theme. Following in his mummy’s footsteps, Lochie decided to do a book review of ‘Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo’ by Brian Flocca, and I am proud to say that he did a splendid job! Here is what he had to say:

The main story follows the journey of three astronauts, Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin as they embarked on their NASA space mission to land on the moon. Flocca used beautiful poetic language throughout the book so at times it felt quite imaginative rather than overly factual. I noticed lots of poetic devises throughout including onomatopoeia, repetition and alliteration. I think this helped us feel empathy for the amazing astronauts and created a greater sense of drama as we followed them on their journey. Not only does the story focus on the astronauts adventure, but it also contrasts their story with that of the people waiting anxiously back home. I like having the two perspectives and it left me feeling more amazed at the astronauts achievements.

At times Flocca was quite factual, almost as if he was instructing the reader how to be an astronaut themselves. The information he gave was very detailed, especially the back matter, so I definitely felt the book was more suited to the older readers of picture books rather than my younger sister for example. Flocca’s illustrations helped keep me engaged throughout, they were almost like looking at photographs they were so detailed and the scene with the countdown was very dramatic. The book was formatted in a simple, clean way which I liked as it highlighted the detail in his illustrations.

I would definitely recommend this book to other junior school readers. I learnt a lot of new facts and had a better understanding of the bravery of the astronauts after reading this book. I would give it at least a 4 and a half stars out of 5!