Kisses from Space

As Polaris Dawn crewmember, engineer, and mother Anna Menon gets ready to take off into space, she penned this sweet picture book as a love letter to her kids—reimagining their family as a tight-knit clan of adventurous dragons who love each other across any distance!

You see, when we’re apart,
we’re not really alone.
I’ll send kisses from space,
and I’ll always come home.

When Anna Menon was offered the chance to become an astronaut on Polaris Dawn, it would fulfill her childhood dream of going to space. But it would also put the largest distance ever between her and her kids. Anna had to consider how she'd connect with her kids as she orbited 870 miles above them at over 15,000 miles per hour.

Kisses from Space is the story of a mama dragon coming home from an out-of-this-world adventure and, snuggling her baby dragons close, she tells them of her journey and how she thought of them the entire time. This heartwarming picture book—written in fun, lyrical rhyme and stunningly illustrated—is about the bonds between family members and a mother’s unwavering love for her children.

ANNA MENON is an American engineer and crew member of Polaris
Dawn, the first human spaceflight mission of the Polaris Program. Born in Houston, she holds a bachelor’s degree in math and Spanish from Texas Christian University and a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Duke University. Anna worked at NASA as a flight controller before joining SpaceX in 2018 as a space operations engineer. She lives with her husband and two children in Houston. This is her first book.

KERI VASEK is a creator and community manager based in Houston. She holds a degree in behavioral sciences from Concordia University Texas and loves writing, exploring, and being creative with her four kids, whom she homeschools.

ANDY HARKNESS is a children’s book author and illustrator. His most recent solo works, Wolfboy and its sequel, Wolfboy Is Scared, were published by Bloomsbury. Andy’s creative passions were sparked long ago by a second-grade assignment to write and illustrate a story. An accomplished animation production designer, he spent twenty-five years at Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios, involved in films
from The Lion King to Moana. Today, Andy works at Skydance Animation Studios as a production designer on an upcoming series for Apple TV+.