So intuitive, so organic. We look to the stars as adults and as kids, like this little boy pictured here. The (renowned) artist, Wendell Minor, told me this is his favorite image included in the recently released book, “Look To The Stars,” by Buzz Aldrin (the second person to step foot on the moon, 40 years ago this month).

I’ll post a review shortly but in the interim here’s a lovely, frank review written by a young boy named Josh Chinn here in Philadelphia. Great job, Josh! (Josh: bet your “Space Quiditch for Muggles” game will be a hit some day!) His father adds, “He actually liked the book more than he implies in his review and for what it’s worth I really like this book…the art’s beautiful, too.”
Ok: Take it away, Josh.

When  I first heard that I was going to be reading this book I was excited because it was about space travel and I really like things to do with Space.
The drawings in the book are actually paintings by Wendell Minor. There are many drawing in this book. They were very colorful and showed many cool things, like the X-1 rocket plane ( my favorite ) it was red. blue and black and looks really fast! The drawing of SPUTNIK reminded me of the “Death Star” from ” Star Wars” so thats pretty cool!The drawings really help tell the story in a colorfull way.
This book tells about the history of Space Travel and theories about the future. This book is not as full of facts as my school textbook on the subject, but is a good book for beginners who want to learn a little about Space travel in a colorful fun way.
This is one of the few books ever written by someone who is a real Astronaut who actually walked on the Moon. This fact alone makes the book very interesting and something that is worth reading. One thing that they mention is that in the future, maybe as soon as 2010, we will return to the Moon and set up a base, and maybe a hotel too! I think this might be dangerous, because of all the asteroids that hit the Moon. Maybe Buzz has a good idea how to solve this problem.
One thing this book did for me is to inspire my imagination to think about our futue in Space. I came up with a low gravity sports game peoples could play at the Moon hotel, I guess you could call it ” Space Quiditch for muggles!”
I think the book might be best for kids 5-9 years old. I am 11 years old and thought it was too simple and easy for me, even though I thought it was pretty cool and worth reading.

In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of “our” trip to the moon, I present you with the making of Buzz Aldrin’s Rocket Experience w/ Snoop Dogg and Talib Kweli.

(Hat tip to Discover Magazine.)

We’ll have a few related book reviews and other activities to follow.