Full Width 
FOCUS MODE
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List More from Dreams of Space - Books and Ephemera
Babar's Moon Trip was a pop-up book I had never come across before. It seems influenced a little by the space race and the American efforts to get to the Moon. They face problems like: not achieving escape velocity for the Moon, failure of stage separation, failure to adjust quickly to reduced gravity on the Moon, and a very short exploration time to obtain samples before their launch window :) It is not really a "pure" pop-up book but rather has some pop-ups and various flaps and tabs you can pull (for action.) de Brunhoff, Laurent. Babar's Moon Trip. New York: Random House. (18 p.) 1968.
A charming pop-up book about a trip to the moon. Like other pop-up books it is hard to share how wonderful it is to see the rocket rise up or how the surface of the Moon is 3-d. It is a reprint and was was originally Czechoslovakian but I don't know much more about the original book. Kubasta, V. Tip & Top and The Moon Rocket. London: Bancroft and Co. (7 p.) 1964.
To continue my obscure "space fiction" I have Jimmy and the Spaceship to share with you. This was a very small "pocket book" of a comic strip. There were other "Jimmy and the...." books but I really enjoyed reading this one. It reads like the typical space story but has its own "shock" ending. I hope you like this obscure bit of early fiction about a trip to the moon. Main, Neville. Jimmy and The Spaceship. London: Brockhampton Press. (30 p.) 1949.
My next 4 posts are celebrating children's illustrated fiction about going to the Moon. Even though I have been collecting these children's book for over 30 years it still is very exciting to find one that you never knew existed. Jack Coggins was an amazing space artist in the 1950s. His two early children's books that were especially memorable were Rockets, Jets, Guided Missiles, and Space Ships (1951) and By Spaceship to the Moon (1952). I have multiple copies of these in English, French and German. So I was very excited to find a 1960 reprint of his 1953 book Merry Mouse and His Trip to the Moon. It was written by his wife Alma Coggins. This is a fictional book with many of the same style of space painting about a mouse who goes to the Moon to find green cheese. I have chosen to reproduce almost he whole book since your chance of finding a copy are pretty small. I hope you enjoy this lost space art treasure. Coggins, Alma. Illustrated by Coggins, Jack. Merry Mouse and His Trip to the Moon. (2nd edition) (Jolly Books.) London: L. Miller & Co. (20 p.) 1960. (reprint of 1953 1st edition). Above is the cover and below an illustration from Rockets,Jets...1951 Here is the cover to By Space Ship to the Moon 1952
Happy Moon Day! This is the last of this batch of My Weekly Readers. I hope you haven't gotten too tired of this summer break. In this issue we celebrate the USA in Space. This March 12th issue celebrates John Glenn's success and looking forward to the next set of missions getting ready for a visit to The Moon. This issue also celebrates the creation of the Everglades National Park in 1934 and its success in saving bald eagles.
More in history
This is the third piece of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb) looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers – a majority of all of the humans who have ever lived. Last time, we started looking at the subsistence of peasant agriculture by considering the productivity of our … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVc: Rent and Extraction →
Today I attended in New York, at Columbia University (which still looks a bit like a fortress because of the students protests that took place there about 1.5 years ago) a conference at the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Policy Dialogue.
Babar's Moon Trip was a pop-up book I had never come across before. It seems influenced a little by the space race and the American efforts to get to the Moon. They face problems like: not achieving escape velocity for the Moon, failure of stage separation, failure to adjust quickly to reduced gravity on the Moon, and a very short exploration time to obtain samples before their launch window :) It is not really a "pure" pop-up book but rather has some pop-ups and various flaps and tabs you can pull (for action.) de Brunhoff, Laurent. Babar's Moon Trip. New York: Random House. (18 p.) 1968.
In 53 BCE, one of the most powerful Romans of the time led his army eastward, hoping to achieve the kind of glory and legacy that Julius Caesar had earned on the battlefield. Instead, Marcus Licinius Crassus walked straight into a trap and became remembered for one of the greatest military defeats in Roman […]
