Non-Fiction Review #1- ALMOST ASTRONAUTS-13 WOMEN WHO DARED TO DREAM

Almost Astronauts- 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone

1.     BIBLIOGRAPHY

Stone, Tanya Lee. Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream. Somerville, Mass: Candlewick Press, 2009.

 ISBN 978-0-763-63611-1

2.     PLOT SUMMARY

This non-fiction multiple award winner documents the “Mercury 13″ women. These women won admission to the astronaut training program in the early 1960’s.  The opposition they received is brought to light through their journey. In learning about these women you will experience how they proved to be tougher than the men of “Mercury 7”, and how they were brave enough to take on the world.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Today many women have gone into space, and they owe a debt of gratitude to the women who first attempted the program and proved women could do the job too. The book tells how life went for the “Mercury 13” women after not getting to go to space, and what they are doing today. It concludes by discussing why there are still fewer women in the space program than men, but that it is now wide open to women who dream of becoming astronauts.

Photographs of the people and places discussed in this book help bring the book to life. Stone’s passion for the subject of the book is evident in her writing, so it is easy to feel the joys, disappointments, and frustrations the women in the book must have felt. This book is highly informative and a must-read for any child interested in space, becoming an astronaut, or women’s struggles for equality in America.  

Probably the most interesting piece of information to me was the discovery of how Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson handled a plea for help to get these women into the program.  Hidden for 40 years was a comment he said to Jerrie Cobb where he said “if we let you or other women into the space program we’d have to let blacks in.  We’d have to let Mexican Americans in, and Chinese Americans. We’d have to let every minority in, and we just can’t do it."  This is very upsetting, but a very good example of prejudice against women and minorities in the 60s.

4.  REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal
Flora Stieglitz Straus Award
ALA Notable Children's Books - Older Readers Category: 2010
Amelia Bloom Lists - Middle Grade Nonfiction: 2010
YALSA Best Books for Young Adults: 2010

From School Library Journal: “Stone adopts a tone of righteous indignation in chronicling the quixotic efforts of 13 women to win admission into NASA's initial astronaut training program in the early 1960s.”

From Publisher’s Weekly: “A gripping narrative surfaces in Stone's text, as the women are repeatedly thwarted by NASA, discriminated against and patronized by society.”

5. CONNECTIONS

Gather read-a-like books to read such as:

Farrell, Mary Cronk, Pure Grit: How American World War II Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific, ISBN: 978-1-419-71028-5

Gibson, Karen Bush, Women in Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures, ISBN: 978-1-613-74844-2

Gather other Tanya Lee Stone books to read such as:

Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles: America's First Black 
 Paratroopers, ISBN: 978-0-763-65117-6

Amelia Earhart, ISBN:  978-0-756-62552-8

Discuss with children what skills it takes to become an astronaut. Do you have the “right stuff?”

Set up an obstacle course, explaining that astronauts need to be very fit.