Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier, astronaut education for 9 and up

Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier is Science Comics by another name. Science Comics is the line of educational and entertaining graphic novels on :01 First Second Books. This isn’t technically a Science Comics book, but it has all of the hallmarks that make those books so worthwhile. Astronauts focuses on the women in space, the resistance to them being in the program, which countries led the way and a small overview about space missions and training.  

Like the Hazardous Tales and Science Comics books there is a narrator who guides the story. The narrator in Astronauts isn’t properly introduced until very late in the book. We meet Mary L. Cleave on the first page. She’s in space and providing readers with a general overview of what it’s like in orbit. As readers will come to learn, Cleave wasn’t the first woman in space. That was actually about 22 years earlier in 1963 by Russian astronaut Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova.  

Readers will then follow Tereshkova’s training and mission with Vostok 6. We’ll get a glimpse into the isolation, potential panic and experiments that astronauts in the early days of space exploration were expected to complete. Artist Maris Wicks does a great job in capturing the angles and vertigo that she must’ve experienced as she rotated the capsule for its descent. It was also fascinating to learn that she got bonked on the nose by a piece of shrapnel while floating down attached to her parachute. She safely landed in a Kazakhstan field where some village greeted her with a picnic. So thankful to be back on Earth she broke protocol and enjoyed some of the cheese that they offered her.  

Cleave’s story is next and occupies the majority of the remaining narrative. She was only 14 when she started taking flying lessons, which led to other things to eventually being interested in NASA. NASA was in the process of modernizing their workforce and policies regarding women astronauts. The fact that women weren’t allowed to enter NASA in the 1960’s and the shifts that happened in order to that to change are a large part of the book.  

Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier by Jim Ottaviani with illustrations by Maris Wicks is entertaining with sparks of humor. It doesn’t crackle with the same energy and speed of some Science Comics graphic novels, but this isn’t one of their books. Instead, Astronauts is more serious and informative, plus it’s just a little bit thicker than some of those books. The age level for the graphic novel is ages nine and up. Our 10-year old reader absolutely loves Science Comics graphic novels and enjoyed Astronauts. Most likely his slightly decreased enjoyment was because he wasn’t expecting something that was so focused on education and history. If you’ve got that aged reader who is looking for a great look in space travel, from a feminine perspective, then Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier is a fine place to start.  

There are affiliate links in this post, because, astronauts.