Destination Moon: The Remarkable and Improbable Voyage of Apollo 11

A stunning middle grade nonfiction that sheds new light on the events and people that made the Apollo program so remarkable.

Only now is it becoming clear just how exceptional and unrepeatable Apollo was. At its height, it employed almost half a million people, many working seven days a week and each determined that “it will not fail because of me.”

Beginning with fighter pilots in World War II, Maurer traces the origins of the Apollo program to a few exceptional soldiers, a Nazi engineer, a...