Mighty Mission Machines: From Rockets to Rovers
Mighty Mission Machines: From Rockets to Rovers
Beth Wilcox Chng is a teacher-librarian in Prince George, British Columbia. She is a graduate of the Master of Arts in Children’s Literature program at the University of British Columbia.
The farthest humans have traveled in outer space is to the Moon. The Moon is 386,242 kilometers (240,000 miles) from Earth—that’s like walking around the entire planet 10 times. Since the average human walks at a pace of 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) per hour, a stroll isn’t going to get you there. In fact, not even an airplane can help! When it comes to getting to outer space, a rocket is your new best friend.
Dr. Dave Williams and Loredana Cunti have continued their “Dr. Dave Astronaut” nonfiction series with this book detailing the various space craft and tools that help astronauts work in outer space. The authors look at necessary elements of a spacecraft, humans in space, various types of spacecraft, the daily jobs of astronauts, robots in space, rovers, space suits, telescopes, and satellites.
Like the previous book, Destination Space, (www.cmreviews.ca/node/662) there is a mix of humorous cartoon illustrations by Theo Krynauw, along with realistic illustrations and photos of the subject matter. While most photos and illustrations are captioned, the text boxes providing detailed information are, at times, difficult to connect to the images. The information sometimes seems spread out and lacks focus. Overall, the organization of the text on the page could be improved. The book does include a table of contents, a list for further reading, and an index.
Mighty Mission Machines covers a large amount of information and would be enjoyed in whole by readers who are interested in the subject matter or in sections to support research and classroom learning.