A is for Astronaut: Exploring Space from A to Z

by Sara Gillingham and Traci N. Todd

Book Overview

Learning about space has never been so much fun An out-of-this-world mix of vintage illustrations and contemporary photos makes this book about space as entertaining to look at as it is to read. With... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811854620
• ISBN13: 9780811854627
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 40 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 9.0" x 11.3"
• Age Range: 3 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

Brilliant, basic, charming!

I plan on living vicariously through my child, who will certainly grow up to be an astronaut... because I always wanted to! She's only 15 months old, so she doesn't read this book yet, but I am in love with it. Bright illustrations and photos, laid out kind of like an alphabetical, abbreviated, fun encyclopedia! This is really charming, and hopefully it will someday inspire my daughter and I to investigate some of the space related objects listed in greater detail together. This book is probably more inspirational than educational, but a real pleasure to thumb through!

All Systems Go

As an adult, I generally don't like kids' picturebooks. They're big, expensive, hardbacks with almost no pages, almost no reading and a lot of pictures. Kids are wild about them for the same reason. I notice one of the "official" reviews slams this book for the thinly veiled worst reason: it's not educational enough. This book only has about one sentence for each letter of the alphabet, but forget that. It's visually dazzling. It's not about learning the alphabet (Richard Scarry's books are better for that). It's also not about learning little definitions of complex tech things (DK robot and other books are better for that). What it is about is firing the imagination with wonderful sounding words married to amazing pictures. This book does what President Kennedy in the early '60s hoped to do when he tried to excite American youth to explore science and math, and bring America into the space program. What does excite youth? Star Wars, Transformers, Lost in Space, Star Trek, E.T., The Jetsons. In short, imaginative portrayls that broaden the mind and feed kids' natural curiosity. What doesn't excite kids? Little models of the Challenger, which fall so short of The Jetsons, dull, "educational" science kits which leave off everything fun and appeal to no one except possibly "official" adult reviewers. A is for Astronaut manages to somehow keep the kick in Cape Kennedy (or Cape Canaveral) while opening young minds to the dazzling wonders of creation. I dare say any space- minded kid will find it amazing.

A is for astronaut

This book is a good learning tool for future astronauts. It teaches the alphabet as well as important space terms. We read it quite often.Child is 3.