Happy New Year! A "Space Ship to the Moon" is your present for a new year. I really like the illustrations in this book. The story is OK but the visions of spacecraft, a space station and mining on the Moon are worth seeing. This is a relatively low cost book used so if you like it it is easy to search out a copy. Reichert, Edwin C. Illustrated by Bilder, Arthur K. Space Ship to the Moon. Chicago: Rand McNally and Co. (27 p.) 1952.

It has been a while but here is a strange Christmas post for you.  Something about Santa and Flying Saucers seems to go together like White wine and Cracker Jack. Sort of sweet and tangy and gets your attention. Santa and the Space Men is a play for children about how Santa is universal. The only illustration is the cover but the contents show an interesting play, creative costume choices, and a Christmas song I think you missed out on. Edith Quick and James Fluckey. Santa and The Space Men. Franklin, OH : Eldridge Pub Co. (56 p.) 1956. And a great finale...

An early children's science fiction book about spaceflight.  Borrowing from a book-seller description: Friedrick Mader, "the German Jules Verne" according to Sam Moskowitz, was a popular author of fantastic romances in post-World War One Germany. DISTANT WORLDS is his only novel translated into English. WUNDERERWELTEN (1911) is a boys' book that "takes its spaceship crew to Mars and finally, at several times the speed of light, to Alpha Centauri, where they explore an Eden-like planet. Its content is quite advanced for 1911.' It was translated into English in 1932. Google Books summarized it like this:  "Professor Dr. Heinrich Schulze of Germany, Captain Munchausen of Australia, and Lord Flitmore of England, together with their wives and a company of associates travel around Mars and Saturn in an anti-matter powered space ship. They follow a comet through the asteroid belt and out of the solar system to Alpha Centauri, landing on a planet of that system." While the illustrations are not really "space art" I have also included a bit of the text so you can get a feel for the technology used. Mader, Friedrich. Illustrated by Graef, Robert A.  Translated by Shachtman, Max. Distant Worlds: The Story of a Voyage to the Planets. New York: Charles Scribner. (343 p.) 1932.

After a Thanksgiving break I am back with Robert Goddard: Father of the Space Age.  Even if there are not a lot of illustrations of space flight this book was very important to me at the time. I remember finding it in the school library and then getting my own paperback copy through the Scholastic Book Club. It was retitled:  Rocket Genius. It is a basic biography of one of the early American rocket pioneers. He essentially developed the first American liquid fueled rockets. While his worked was not embraced at the time it ended up being important in World War 2. So it made sense to introduce Space Age children to one of the earliest rocket scientists. Verral, Charles Spain. Illustrated by Frame, Paul. Robert Goddard: Father of the Space Age. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (80 p.) 1963. Here are a few illustrations from the book: