Man on the Moon: a day in the life of Bob

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I always hoped that more people would discover the Bob books as they're absolutely fantastic. Now you've got no excuse with this latest collection celebrating 15 years of awesome Bobness! Source: Read It Daddy A former editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, Chaikin has also been a contributing editor of Popular Science and has written for Newsweek, Air&Space/Smithsonian, World Book Encyclopedia, Scientific American, and other publications. If you were to ask me before I read this book "who is Frank Borman?" I would not have been able to tell you. Commander of Apollo 8, they were the first crew to complete trans-lunar injection and travel the quarter of a billion miles to reach lunar orbit. The first crew to ever orbit the moon. There were numerous times during this book where I had to stop reading and fully comprehend the importance and synergistic meaning behind each Apollo mission. Using the idea of the gift shop on the moon, as is shown, to help with addition and subtraction, use of money etc.

Chaikins 'A man on the Moon' is a comprehensive and chronological story about the people, the engineering and the politics allied to the completion of John F Kennedy's mission to reach the moon. In terms of the Apollo missions this book is the authoritative masterpiece. On the way to the Moon, they experience weightlessness, which Bedford finds "exceedingly restful". [7] On the surface of the Moon the two men discover a desolate landscape, but as the Sun rises, the thin, frozen atmosphere vaporises and strange plants begin to grow with extraordinary rapidity. Bedford and Cavor leave the capsule, but in romping about get lost in the rapidly growing jungle. They hear for the first time a mysterious booming coming from beneath their feet. They encounter "great beasts", "monsters of mere fatness", that they dub "mooncalves", and five-foot-high "Selenites" tending them. At first they hide and crawl about, but growing hungry partake of some "monstrous coralline growths" of fungus that inebriate them. They wander drunkenly until they encounter a party of six extraterrestrials, who capture them. [8] The insectoid lunar natives (referred to as "Selenites", after Selene, the Greek moon goddess) are part of a complex and technologically sophisticated society that lives underground, but this is revealed only in radio communications received from Cavor after Bedford's return to Earth. The First Men in the Moon is a scientific romance, originally serialised in The Strand Magazine and The Cosmopolitan from November 1900 to June 1901 and published in hardcover in 1901, [2] by the English author H. G. Wells, who called it one of his "fantastic stories". [3] The novel tells the story of a journey to the Moon undertaken by the two protagonists: a businessman narrator, Mr. Bedford; and an eccentric scientist, Mr. Cavor. Bedford and Cavor discover that the Moon is inhabited by a sophisticated extraterrestrial civilisation of insect-like creatures they call "Selenites". The inspiration seems to come from the famous 1865 book by Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon, and the opera by Jacques Offenbach from 1875. Verne's novel also uses the word "Selenites" to describe inhabitants of the Moon . [4] Plot summary [ edit ] Frontispiece illustration There is also the story of Alan Shepard,who managed to get the command of Apollo 14,at the ripe age of 47,much to the dismay of the others,who had been waiting in line. Before the moon landings,there is the story of Gemini and the tragedy of Apollo 1,whose crew was killed on the ground in a training accident.There were other astronauts,who were killed in flying accidents,before their space missions.The story starts by introducing Bob in his home and explaining his morning routine and his journey to work. Following on from this it also shows the process of Bob getting ready for work at the launch pad, specifically the time he has to arrive, be ready and leave by, which is a recurring theme throughout the book. The book then goes into detail of what Bob does at work on the moon such as keeping it clean and tidy, and giving guided tours. Another recurring theme within the book is the phrase “there’s no such thing as aliens” which may encourage speculation among the children reading and provoke discussion. The story then explains the process of the end of Bob’s day and his journey home. The story finishes with Bob’s evening routine and a question about whether aliens really do exist. Spaceman Bob embarks on new space adventures with a disappearing moon, a movie career, clone chaos, a right royal disaster and some heartless robots in this anthology. Reading the book and talking about the story and pictures in detail meant that my son was really willing to do some writing himself. He wrote a book about Bob’s day and was able to sequence the story himself because he was so familiar with the story. Making a zig zag book was a fantastic recommendation because it meant he was so proud to have written a book himself."

In his book The Three-Body Problem (novel) the self-confessed HG Wells fan, [15] author Liu Cixin, names one of his scientists monitoring deep space for signs of life as Ye Wenjie, a role similar to that of Mr. Julius Wendigee in The First Men In The Moon. A substance similar to cavorite (called gravitar) is used in Space: 1889& Beyond, which also features a character called Rear Admiral Herbert Cavor and the indigenous population of Luna are called Selenites (the name being derived from the same source material mentioned in The First Men in the Moon). This series also features a character called Commander George Bedford. According to author Andy Frankham-Allen (who also developed the series) this was all a very intentional reference to the works of H. G. Wells, with the main protagonist, Professor Nathanial Stone, a direct reference to Parson Nathaniel from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds; Nathanial Stone's father is a reverend. The First Men in the Moon, Ch. 19. The unnamed narrator of The War of the Worlds experiences a similar sense of self-alienation.

SPaG- there is some interesting vocabulary used in this book that might possibly be new to pupils in KS1, such as somersaults, souvenir, stilts, craters, astronauts. It also acts as a good lead on to talking about the difference between writing about yourself and writing from a different perspective. Pupils could write their own day in the life, either of themselves, or maybe someone else like is done in the book.