The Astronaut Who Painted the Moon

The True Story
of Alan Bean

Orchard Books
(Scholastic)
(pub. 5.28.2019) 
40 pages

A True Tale with

A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Dean Robbins
      and illustrator:  Sean Rubin

 
C haracter: Alan Bean

O verview: 
     "The  Apollo 12 mission rocketed through the sky, beyond Earth's orbit, and finally landed on the  Moon. Astronaut Alan Bean placed his foot on the ground and became the fourth person to walk on the Moon's beautiful, barren surface. When he returned, Alan began to paint what he saw. He wanted the world to feel the magic and mystery that he felt out there, 240,000 miles away from home.
     The Astronaut Who Painted the Moon is for any reader who has ever longed to know what it is like in outer space, for any reader who has ever created art to express how they feel, and for any reader who has ever wondered what it's like to walk on a new world."

T antalizing taste: 
     "The shaking stopped as the spacecraft gained speed. Alan was in outer space! He had trained for so long as an astronaut and a scientist, and soon he would walk on the Moon! 
     Alan gazed out the window, marveling at the shapes and colors in space. The sky turned to black. The Earth was a blue and white ball glowing in the darkness. The Moon was many shades of gray. Its mountains and craters seemed bigger the closer he got."

And something more: The Author's Note explains that "Bean returned home to a hero's welcome... He flew another mission into space but left NASA in 1981 to work on his painting... Bean's paintings combined his skills as a scientist and an artist. He used exact measurements for the details, but he also used imagination to capture the dizzying sensation of walking on the Moon. By sprinkling his paintings with Moon dust, scraping them with Moon tools, and stamping them with Moon boots, he tried to make a direct connection with his experiences in Space."