"Boots? Check.
Gloves? Check.
Helmet? Check."
Do not forget to zip up the spacesuit!
Once fully dressed and ready, the young child takes the elevator to the first floor and emerges onto a rough and rocky landscape, leaving tell-tale footprints there. It is the beginning for the imaginative adventure of a lifetime.
Readers are lucky enough to have a clear-eyed view as the imagination soars. We watch the astronaut bounce from place to place in a defiance of gravity. The terrain is all jagged edges and concrete. Emerging from a volcanic-like crater, and making her way to the summit of a rocky precipice, a flag is planted proudly. A slip-and-fall lands the agile adventurer back down and into the crater.
The child then pops up to further excitement when a set of tracks provides the path to a crew of odd-looking creatures who watch as the astronaut lets them know through a series of sketches that Earth is home, and her rocket ship is missing. With help from a very tall speckled creature, the astronaut slides straight into the path of three frightening brutes whose presence sends the child racing to be somewhere else. Through the blackness of space and falling snow the child emerges unscathed at her classroom door, to be welcomed by classmates as they remove their winter outerwear in preparation for a new day together.
Marvelous paper collage illustrations take young readers on this remarkable adventure through time and space. Without a word, the escapade is fully realized in imagined landscapes and constant movement from one dramatic event to the next. The more often you return to its story, the more you will see. If, as an adult, you like to use your imagination as this young child does, you will be delighted to examine this book on your own and be surprised by its many wonders.
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