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Note: This section may include reviews for related titles (e.g., same author, series, or related edition).

From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

With graceful words and captivating illustrations, Brian Floca makes it clear that behind the seeming ease of those first steps across the moon’s surface was a lot of effort, not to mention an unprecedented sense of anticipation. As he provides information about the technical details and achievements of the Apollo 11 mission, Floca always keeps his focus on the human story. During the step-by-step account of liftoff and stages of rocket separation, Floca shows an astronaut’s sideways glance at the zero moment of countdown, and he provides an intriguing glimpse at the challenges of eating, bathing, and going to the bathroom in space. Finely detailed illustrations and a lyrical narrative combine to overcome the book’s few flaws, such as the gender-stereotyped family shown following the drama of the moon landing on television. (Ages 5–10)

CCBC Choices 2010 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2010. Used with permission.

From Horn Book

July 1, 2019
In this visually sublime, thoroughly researched picture book, Floca selects details to transform science into relatable experience. Throughout, Floca engages readers with his spare lyricism and with the artistry of his watercolor and ink illustrations. He uses the format to perfection, with large pictures to communicate size, power, and perspective; sequenced panels to show steps unfolding; and vignettes to catch particular moments. This edition has been expanded for the fiftieth anniversary of the first moon landing. Timeline.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From Booklist

Starred review from May 1, 2019
Grades K-4 *Starred Review* The original Moonshot (2009) became a bright star in the constellation of children's space-travel books. Published on the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, it told how astronauts traveled to the moon, walked on its surface for the first time, and returned to Earth. For 10 years, this Sibert Honor Book has wowed its audience. How is the revised edition different? The text is more inclusive (no longer implying that only men worked in NASA's control room) and more expressive, through better placement of phrases on the page. Eight new pages offer room for two worthwhile additions. First, an early double-page spread acknowledges and depicts racially diverse groups of individuals representing the thousands of men and women who planned the mission, designed and built the spacecraft, made the spacesuits, and so on. Later, six new pages allow for a fuller portrayal of the mission, including the night spent on the moon, Eagle's crucial docking with Columbia, and the capsule's dramatic reentry into Earth's atmosphere. The new illustrations in this section work beautifully with the well-chosen words. Telling the Apollo 11 story more fully while recognizing the contributions of women and minorities, here's an engaging, enlightening, and timely new edition of this visually stunning book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

From Kirkus

Starred review from March 1, 2019
A fresh, expanded edition of Floca's top-drawer tribute to the first moon landing, which won a Sibert honor in 2010.New here is an early nod to the "thousands of people" who worked behind the scenes to make the mission a success (a nod echoed in the closing recap) and a much-enlarged account of Apollo 11's return flight to Earth. Both include new art: For the first, a set of vignettes clearly depicts women and people of color playing prominent roles (including a recognizable Katherine Johnson), and for the second, the 2009 original's two pages grow to eight, climaxed by a close-up of the command module Columbia's furious, fiery re-entry. The narrative, along with having expanded to match, has been lightly tweaked throughout but remains as stately and dramatic as ever: "But GO, GO, says Mission Control: / 'Eagle, Houston. You're GO for landing.' / Far from home and far from help, / still steady, steady the astronauts fly, / as time and fuel are running out." Minor changes in other illustrations and added or clarified details in the text add further life and luster to a soaring commemoration of our space program's most spectacular achievement. This is the rare revised edition that adds enough new material to demand purchase.Still essential reading, more so than ever for being broader in scope and more balanced of presentation than the original. (Informational picture book. 7-12)

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From Horn Book

July 1, 2009
In this visually sublime, thoroughly researched picture book, Floca selects details to transform science into relatable experience. Throughout, Floca engages readers with his spare lyricism and with the artistry of his watercolor and ink pictures. He uses the format to perfection, with large pictures to communicate size, power, and perspective; sequenced panels to show steps unfolding; and small pictures to catch particular moments. Timeline.

(Copyright 2009 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From Publisher's Weekly

May 4, 2009
Several publishers are issuing children's books this season in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11
moon landing. Here are some that shine.
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11
Brian Floca
. Atheneum/Jackson
, $17.99 (48p) ISBN 978-1-4169-5046-2

Floca's rendition of Apollo 11
's journey to the moon is as poetic as it is historically resonant. The first page offers a quiet meditation: “High above/ there is the Moon,/ cold and quiet,/ no air, no life,/ but glowing in the sky,” followed by the astronauts preparing for the voyage and then a dramatic liftoff (“The rocket is released!”). Once in space, the lunar module, Eagle
—“a stranger ship, more bug than bird,/ a black and gold and folded spider”—locks onto the Columbia
. The subdued illustrations hold an undercurrent of emotion (as a family hears the report that the Eagle
has landed safely, the father wipes his eyes with awe and relief). A stirring depiction of a momentous event. Ages 4–7.

From Horn Book

Starred review from May 1, 2009
This fortieth anniversary year of the moon landing will likely see many books published on the topic; Floca's visually sublime picture book will rise above most. Clearly he has researched his subject thoroughly, as indicated by the opening timeline and diagram on one set of end pages, the source notes opposite the title page, and the extended discussion on the closing end pages. Yet Floca distills all of his gathered knowledge into a concise text, selecting the exact details to transform science into relatable experience: "Here below / there are three men / who close themselves / in special clothes, / who-click-lock hands / in heavy gloves, / who-click-lock heads / in large, round helmets." Throughout the book Floca engages the reader both with his spare lyricism and with his watercolor and ink pictures. He uses the format to perfection, with large pictures to communicate size, power, and perspective; sequenced panels to show steps unfolding; and small pictures to catch particular moments. The artistry in book design and illustration is demonstrated by such stunning double-page spreads as the one containing the word liftoff, which shows just the bottom of the immense rocket as it begins to rise. Libraries will be dismayed by endpapers filled with important information, some of which may get covered up; but the heart of the book is complete and intact within, allowing children to be drawn into the wonder of the first moonwalk.

(Copyright 2009 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From School Library Journal

Starred review from March 1, 2009
Gr 2-5-Large in trim size as well as topic, this stirring account retraces "Apollo 11"'s historic mission in brief but precise detail, and also brilliantly captures the mighty scope and drama of the achievement. Rendered in delicate lines and subtly modulated watercolors, the eye-filling illustrations allow viewers to follow the three astronauts as they lumber aboard their spacecraft for the blastoff and ensuing weeklong journey ("]there's no fresh air outside the window;/after a week this small home will not smell so good./This is not why anyone/wants to be an astronaut"). They split up so that two can make their famous sortie, and then reunite for the return to "the good and lonely Earth, /glowing in the sky." Floca enhances his brief, poetic main text with an opening spread that illustrates each component of "Apollo 11", and a lucid closing summary of the entire Apollo program that, among other enlightening facts, includes a comment from Neil Armstrong about what he said versus what he meant to say when he stepped onto the lunar surface. Consider this commemoration of the first Moon landing's 40th anniversary as a spectacular alternative for younger readers to Catherine Thimmesh's "Team Moon" (Houghton, 2006)."John Peters, New York Public Library"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Booklist

Starred review from February 15, 2009
Grades K-3 *Starred Review* Forty years after NASAs Apollo 11 mission first landed astronauts on the moon, this striking nonfiction picture book takes young readers along for the ride. The moon shines down on Earth, where three men don spacesuits, climb into Columbia, and wait for liftoff. On a nearby beach, people gather to watch the rocket blast the astronauts into space. The astronauts fly to the moon, circle it, land on it, walk on its surface, and see the good and lonely Earth, glowing in the sky. After flying back to the orbiter, they return to Earth and splash down, home at last. An appended note discusses the mission in greater detail. Written with quiet dignity and a minimum of fuss, the main text is beautifully illustrated with line-and-wash artwork that provides human interest, technological details, and some visually stunning scenes. The books large format offers plenty of scope for double-page illustrations, and Floca makes the most of it, using the sequential nature of picture books to set up the more dramatic scenes and give them human context. The moving image of Earth seen from the moon, for instance, is preceded by a picture of a lone astronaut looking up. A handsome, intelligent book with a jacket thats well-nigh irresistible.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)