The Sea of Tranquillity - Hardcover

Haddon, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152012850 ISBN 13: 9780152012854

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 1996

Synopsis

He borrowed library books and read about astronauts walking in space, orbiting the earth, and flying around the moon. Every night the little boy hoped and hoped that one day astronauts would land on the moon. And then, one cloudless night, they did. . . . “Haddon captures the profound thrill of being witness to the moon landing better than any other picture book.”--School Library Journal

About this title

About the Author:

Christian Birmingham graduated from Exeter College of Art and Design in 1991. He won his first contract almost immediately on leaving college. He was soon commissioned for a book that has now sold in excess of 1.5 million copies - The Night Before Christmas. The immediacy of chalk and pencil suits his style and offers wonderful luminosity to his works. Books illustrated include: A Christmas Carol, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Little Farmer Joe, Oliver Twist, Sleeping Beauty, The Night Before Christmas, Wenceslas and The Snow Queen. Christian had a successful exhibition of the Snow Queen at the Air Gallery, London in December 2007. It is planned that his next book will be exhibited in December 2009.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 1-3?A man looks back to his childhood, when he spent hours creating space scrapbooks and gazing at the moon through his father's binoculars, hoping that one day people would land there. He remembers staying up til 3 a.m. the glorious night they did, to watch on TV as Armstrong and Aldrin walked in the Sea of Tranquility's dust. Like Peter Catalanotto, Birmingham paints in a realistic style and often from an intimately close point of view, softening edges and giving the light a bluish cast that mutes the colors appealingly; scenes of a fresh-faced lad in a red-striped shirt alternate with wordless full-spread views of the two spacesuited astronauts in a wide gray landscape?joined (as the child drops off to sleep) by a smaller figure. Though Mary Ann Fraser builds a sturdier foundation of facts in One Giant Leap (Holt, 1993), Haddon captures the profound thrill of being witness to the moon landing better than any other picture book; and his concluding reminder that the astronauts' footprints "will still be there tonight, tomorrow night, and every night for millions of years to come" may kindle a response in young readers who think it's all only misty, musty history.?John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0152012850
• ISBN 13: 9780152012854
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Birmingham Christian