( 5 reviews )
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Posted: Mar 26 2006
I am a huge fan of any DK books - the fact that this is a DK book about the space shuttle is AWESOME! First the basics - this book is not technical, nor will it show schematics of the shuttle. It is bits and pieces of memories from shuttle astronauts placed between eye-popping photos of the shuttle, Earth and of astronauts at work. Second - the astronauts represent a varied sample from the Astronaut Corps. While there may be some famous names interspersed throughout, most comments are from relatively 'unknown' astronauts. This makes the book even more valuable that 'common' astronauts (can any astronaut truly be called 'common'?) share their humanity through words and visions. They are 77 voices from an amazing community - listen when they speak. This book would be a great addition to any space flight collection. Its oversized print would relegate it to the coffee table, but imagine the conversations it would start...
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( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Feb 5 2005
This book includes wonderful photography of the shuttle and space and earth as seen from the shuttle. It also has short little snippets from the astronauts about their experiences. These range from the mundane to the humorous to the inspirational.
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( 2 of 2 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jul 26 2004
This book has awe-inspiring photos in full-color and many that are full-page. It's an oversize book so you get some huge photos of space! You'll see the astronauts floating around and doing their work, too, but the best photos are of the earth and its amazing beauty when seen from a distance. The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is, like a lot of high-quality picture books, the text isn't the best. Some of the astronauts are good writers and write great entries about how being in space changed them - made them appreciate life more, and so on - but other entries are dry and could have been edited out. Also, the astronaut writing the page has their photo somewhere in the book, but not on the same page as their writing. It's hard to keep track of who wrote what unless you take the time to flip back and forth to the index, look up the astronaut's photo, and compare that to their writing. The actual shuttle itself and how it works is not covered much until the final couple pages which do include a good graphic about the shuttle's parts.
