Journey to the Moon (1969)

"...when man first stepped on the moon, many small children were either asleep or throughly bewildered. "









This is another of those visual treats that you can find in children's books. Erich Fuchs is a german artist who took the moon landing as an inspiration to create a book of abstract paintings about the Apollo 11 landing.




As the book jacket says,

"Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." When these astonishing words were first broadcast and later, on the evening of July 20, 1969, when man first stepped on the moon, many small children were either asleep or throughly bewildered. Now, in Journey to the Moon, a brilliant German painter has brought the strange wonder of the Apollo 11 mission within the reach and understanding of these younger children. Erich Fuchs, whose work has been compared with that of Paul Klee, captures each important event of the eight-day mission in space. In his beautiful paintings a child can relive again and again, the launching, the flight, the landing, and the return to Earth of the three astronauts. A brief, clear text explains the day-by-day progress of the mission

Since I was the stately age of 10 years old during the moon landing I was fascinated and consumed rather than "bewildered". But I do agree that trying to capture that moment in such strong paintings helps us remember how strange and wonderful it all seemed at the time.