Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Thimmesh, Catherine. 2006. Team Moon: How 400, 000 people landed Apollo 11 on the moon. Houghton Mifflin: New York. ISBN 0618507574

There has been much controversy over the first flight to the moon. Many believe the first moon flight was made possible only by the people at NASA. Thimmesh’s non-fiction piece sets the record straight. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong may be well known for braving the mission, but the workers behind the true accomplishment were many and according to Thimmesh, 400,000 strong. Many are named by name and documented in this beautifully put together scrapbook complete with pictures and actual quotes from those that made it all happen. From the seamstresses who labored over the astronaut suits to the mechanical foreman in Parkes, Australia manning the Parks Radio Telescope in contact with the lunar cameras. The pictures are outstanding and placing them all together in sequence adds much needed visuals to the text of this non-fiction picture book.

In 2007, Team Moon won the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award (honors nonfiction children’s literature), the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award (for excellence in non-fiction writing) and American Library Association Notable Books for Children Award. Team Moon is a current nominee for the Texas Bluebonnet Award.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S):
Review from SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: June 01, 2006
“In infectiously hyperbolic prose that's liberally interspersed with quotes and accompanied by sheaves of period photos, Thimmesh retraces the course of the space mission that landed "an actual man, on the actual Moon." It's an oft-told tale, but the author tells it from the point of view not of astronauts or general observers, but of some of the 17,000 behind-the-scenes workers at Kennedy Space Center, the 7500 Grumman employees who built the lunar module, the 500 designers and seamstresses who actually constructed the space suits, and other low-profile contributors who made the historic flight possible.”

Review from PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: April 17, 2006.
“This behind-the-scenes look at the first Apollo moon landing has the feel of a public television documentary in its breadth and detail.The book opens with several photographs of people huddled around TVs to view the event (one shows Italians watching a small set at an outdoor cafe). The author then delves into the back story of the organizations and hundreds of thousands of people who made the 1969 mission possible.”