The Moon and You

Uses fascinating trivia, lively illustrations, and upbeat, humorous prose to pique young readers' interest in the moon, offering up-to-date information on gravity, tides, and spaceship landings, and a section on what ancient races thought about Earth's neighbor.

Grade 3-5-An overview of our closest neighbor. The narrative text flows from one page to the next without chapter or section headings, and there is no index. These are not drawbacks, however, as the book is intended to be read from cover to cover rather than to be used as a reference source. Physical characteristics, the 1969 landing, and theories of origin are described, and the moon's phases are well explained and illustrated. Krupp discusses the ways ancient peoples viewed the celestial body, and a section on the "Man in the Moon" details various cultures' perceptions of its inhabitants. The black-and-white, double-page illustrations are rendered in pencil. There are a few pages on which the print is black on a textured black-and-white background, but only one of them is difficult to read. All libraries needing information on the moon would find this a useful purchase.
Margaret M. Hagel, Norfolk Public Library System, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 3-6. Similar in approach and format to the author and illustrator's The Comet and You (1985) and The Big Dipper and You (1989), this introduces the moon to young readers. Set in a picture-book format, the straightforward, conversational text begins by briefly explaining the history, geography, orbit, phases, eclipses, gravity, and exploration of the moon. A few pages into basic moon facts, Krupp offers this image to help kids remember them: "In a baseball game on the moon, every hit would be a home run. The game would never be called on account of rain. With no air to carry the sound, you could never hear the fans cheer." The second half of the book concerns moon legends and beliefs in various cultures throughout history. The black-and-white shaded pencil drawings vary from factual to dramatic to fanciful. An appealing supplement to more traditional books on the moon. Carolyn Phelan