Lucky 13: Survival in Space

While visiting the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum Annex near Dulles Airport with my young grandson, we spotted an author's table near the gift shop. Mr. Hilliard was signing autographs and selling four of his books for chldren. After checking out the titles, my grandson selected Lucky 13. Mr. Hilliard signed it for him by name and even took the name to make a small sketch of a heat shield beside his inscription. It was all very nice, but the best part was actually when we sat down to read the book. As a former kindergarten teacher, I've read many run-of-the-mill books with pretty illustrations. Likewise, I've read many great stories with inferior illustrations. Lucky 13 is an appealing blend of interestingly told story AND beautiful illustrations. Very well done! As an aside, my grandson can be a little sensitive to "scary" events, so I was concerned to see how he would react to the very real peril of the astronauts' emergency situation. My opinion is that Mr. Hilliard did an excellent job of relaying the drama of the situation in an age-appropriate way. I highly recommend this title and plan to purchase other titles in the future!

"Houston, we have a problem." Somewhere in the Apollo 13 Command Module there was an explosion and "precious oxygen was pouring out the side of the Service Module." Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert were in trouble. Big trouble. Instead of landing on the moon they were going to have to figure out how to make it back to earth safely. The only way they could make it was luck, their skill and that of Mission Control in Houston. Their dream of landing on the moon was gone in an instant. As many young boys in the 1930s dreamed of outer space. Jim Lovell read about it too and dreamed that he too might be one of the lucky ones who would be a space traveler. Now his main focus was saving his crew and getting back to Earth. The ship was badly damaged and the Lunar Module, a lightweight, delicate craft, was now their "lifeboat." Fred was becoming ill and the crucial calculations that could mean the difference between life and death were being worked out by Jim . . . with a pencil and paper. Would they make it back to Earth? Is the number thirteen really that unlucky? The art work in this book is very realistic and stunning. The sidebars in this book give detailed, scientific explanation of the flight. The print in these is quite small and a lot of information is packed in each one. If you have a space flight fanatic (or are one yourself) I might like to recommend "Moonshot: the Flight of Apollo 11" and if you don't already have it, the Apollo 13 movie starring Tom Hanks. Get ready to count down for some fun!