The Museum on the Moon: The Curious Objects on the Lunar Surface

by Irene Latham, Myriam Wares (Illustrator)

Overview

The most curious museum on Earth isn't on the earth at all; it's on the moon.

A 2024 Notable Poetry Book, National Council of Teachers of English

Honor Award, 2024 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award (Pennsylvania State University Libraries and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book)

Nominee, Intermediate Division, 2024-2025 Keystone to Reading Elementary Book Awards

“The poetry and facts complement each other and make for a nice flow of information and fun, resulting in sometimes goofy poetry.…A lovely picture book that mixes poetry and history about the moon.”—School Library Journal?

"A provocative tally of treasures and trash." —Kirkus Reviews

Footprints forever etched in time. A commemorative patch from a tragic flight. Two golf balls, still lodged in frozen dust 238,900 miles away. From the amusing to the poignant, The Museum on the Moon introduces readers to the mysterious objects left on the lunar surface since humans arrived in 1969. Part history, part poetry, heartwarming and haunting, and illustrated with breathtaking graphite drawings, The Museum on the Moon is a moving exhibit of humankind's most famous quest for knowledge and our place in the universe. 

From the book:

The primary goals of the United States' NASA Apollo program (1961-1972) were to establish space technology, carry out scientific exploration of the moon, and to develop ways for humans to work in the lunar environment. Six missions—Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, and 17—landed American astronauts on the moon. The astronauts carried with them a variety of items that are now artifacts—some personal mementos, some tools and equipment for the purpose of moon transport and experimentation, and other things, like human waste products, unavoidable. Because the moon has virtually no atmosphere, these things remain on the moon, just as they were, and will presumably continue to be there for years to come. The moon truly is a museum!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781638192039
Publisher:	Bushel & Peck Books
Publication date:	09/19/2023
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 11.20(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Irene Latham is the author of many books for children, including novels, poetry, and picture books. Winner of the 2016 ILA Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award, she writes poetry inspired by nature, art, and the experience of being human. Together with Charles Waters, she's written Dictionary for a Better World and Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes and Friendship, which was named a Charlotte Huck Honor book and a Kirkus Best Book of 2018. Irene lives on a lake in Alabama where she does her best to "live her poem" every single day by laughing, playing the cello, and birdwatching.

Myriam Wares is a French-Canadian illustrator from Montreal. Her work touches on a variety of themes, notably natural sciences and technology, mythology and surrealism, as well as contemporary social issues.

Editorial Reviews

Readers explore the moon as a museum of memories, equipment, and more through different types of poems that examine the many ways humankind has left its mark on the moon. Each spread features a poem and showcases a moon fact. Different types of poems include a ghazal, an acrostic, and an ABAB rhyme scheme. Facts shared range from the start of missions to the moon to the one book that has been left behind. The poetry and facts complement each other and make for a nice flow of information and fun, resulting in sometimes goofy poetry. For instance, the poem about astronauts going to the bathroom will especially ­entertain younger readers. Illustrations in a muted palette mostly feature astronauts and other people. Back matter includes a list of humans who walked on the surface of the moon so far, a moon milestones time line, and additional notes on each of the poems, including ­websites to learn more about the moon facts. VERDICT A lovely picture book that mixes poetry and history about the moon.

"A provocative tally of treasures and trash." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

07/01/2023

Gr 3–6—Readers explore the moon as a museum of memories, equipment, and more through different types of poems that examine the many ways humankind has left its mark on the moon. Each spread features a poem and showcases a moon fact. Different types of poems include a ghazal, an acrostic, and an ABAB rhyme scheme. Facts shared range from the start of missions to the moon to the one book that has been left behind. The poetry and facts complement each other and make for a nice flow of information and fun, resulting in sometimes goofy poetry. For instance, the poem about astronauts going to the bathroom will especially entertain younger readers. Illustrations in a muted palette mostly feature astronauts and other people. Back matter includes a list of humans who walked on the surface of the moon so far, a moon milestones time line, and additional notes on each of the poems, including websites to learn more about the moon facts. VERDICT A lovely picture book that mixes poetry and history about the moon.—Molly Dettmann

School Library Journal

2023-09-05
In poems and descriptive notes, a catalog of items left by human visitors to the Moon.

From Neil Armstrong’s boot prints to flags, family mementos, golf balls, and bags of poop, humans have been leaving signs of their presence on our nearest neighbor for more than 50 years. While freely admitting that much of it is “space junk,” Latham urges readers to take a more elevated view and regard the detritus as a record of human aspirations and achievement—easier to do for, say, the memorials for dead astronauts and cosmonauts than the waste “collection bags” left by multiple Apollo missions. Wares’s views of light- and dark-skinned children in street clothes standing on the lunar surface with vacuum-suited astronauts abandon accuracy for symbolism, and many of the poems, as the author notes at the end, are written as examples of various literary forms from “triolet” and “Golden Shovel” to “pantoum” and so come off more as exercises than spontaneous lyrical expressions. Still, there’s something that encourages reflection in knowing a falcon’s feather and the ashes of a renowned astronomer, not to mention the plaque reading “We came in peace for all mankind,” are up there waiting for our return.

A provocative tally of treasures and trash. (timeline, end notes) (Informational picture book. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews