Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 »

Brian Floca has written and illustrated the picture books Five Trucks; the ALA Notable Children’s Book The Racecar Alphabet; and the ALA Notable Children’s Book and Robert F. Sibert Honor Book Lightship. His most recent book is Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, which Kirkus Reviews described as “Breathtaking, thrilling, and perfect.” Brian has illustrated The Hinky-Pink, by Megan McDonald, also an ALA Notable Children’s Book, and several books by Avi, including the graphic novel City of Light, City of Dark and Poppy, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. A native of Texas, Brian currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. You can visit him online at brianfloca.com.

Simply told, grandly shown, here is the flight of Apollo 11. Here for a new generation of readers and explorers are the steady astronauts, clicking themselves into gloves and helmets, strapping themselves into sideways seats. Here are their great machines in all their detail and monumentality, the ROAR of rockets, and the silence of the Moon. Here is a story of adventure and discovery -- a story of leaving and returning during the summer of 1969, and a story of home, seen whole, from far away.

The Washington Post - Kristi Jemtegaard

…while the illustrations speak eloquently of the wonders of science, the free verse text positively sings. Within a single sentence, facts (the rocket is 30 stories high and weighs 6 million pounds) and artistry ("a tower full of fuel and fire") keep company. In this beautiful amalgam of science and poetry, words, set free from gravity, merge into images that reverberate and soar.