T-MINUS: THE RACE TO THE MOON by Jim Ottaviani, Zander Cannon, and Kevin Cannon (2009)

Aladdin/Simon & Schuster; 124 pages; historical fiction; ages 9-13; ISBN: 978-1-4169-4960-2.

A graphic novel covering the historic race between the United States and Soviet Union to put a man on the moon, T-Minus gives equal coverage to both superpowers, culminating in the events of July 20, 1969.

Along the way readers are introduced to the men and women who made it happen, including lesser-known figures like German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who designed the Saturn V rocket that carried Neil Armstrong and company into outer space; Sergei Korolev, the "chief designer" of the Soviet space program; NASA engineers Caldwell "C.C." Johnson and Max Faget; and "computers," otherwise known in the USSR as Russian women who were hired for their mathematical expertise.

Jim Ottaviani, the writer of T-Minus, and Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon, who illustrated it (and aren't related, it turns out), stuff a large amount of historical and technological information into T-Minus's 100-plus pages, so much so that at times the pace flagged because I got bogged down in explanations of acronyms such as TLI ("Trans-Lunar Injection") and GUIDO ("Guidance Officer"). If you've recently developed a casual interest in the history of space exploration, T-Minus probably isn't the place to start, but its authors show a deep respect for the attention spans of their intended tween audience, which is to be commended.

For further reading, check out Laika by Nick Abadzis (2007). And to see a Glogster-hosted advertising poster I created for T-Minus, click here.