Review of "Emily the Astronaut: The Space Case," by Colette Omans Nicoletta

Review of

Emily the Astronaut: The Space Case, by Colette Omans Nicoletta ISBN 9781592989447

Three out of five stars

 This book is designed to encourage young girls to aspire to be astronauts and generally speaking, that task is well done. Emily appears to be in the age range of seven or eight and she wants to be the first girl to visit the moon. In order to act on her goal, she needs to learn the science of the moon and how to get there. Therefore, most of the book is a learning experience for Emily as she researches and travels to Cape Canaveral to watch a shuttle launch. She also visits NASA, where she does things like touch a rock from the moon.

 Yet, there are weaknesses in the book. The most colossal occurs in the beginning, where there is the line, “Dad says that the moon is made of cheese and I should ride my skateboard on the Milky Way (made of milk) to get there!” This is nonsense that should not be included in a serious book of science, with so few pages to devote to the idea of traveling to the moon, why waste them on such preposterous claims. Emily consults her friend Noah and he immediately tells her the truth.

 A second weakness is when Emily talks to her friend Hannah that lives at Cape Canaveral. Hannah says, “Well, I live in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where rockets and shuttles go to the moon.” This is factually incorrect as the shuttle could only achieve a low Earth orbit and never came anywhere close to the moon.

 Finally, there is an error of omission. Nowhere in this book is the word Apollo mentioned, if the subject is going to the moon, then it is logical that it be stated how many people have already left their footprints there. Especially when you are wasting pages talking about cheese and milk.

This book was made available for free for review purposes.