The Sea of Tranquility

This charming and unusual picture book combines autobiography with non-fiction. Haddon tells of his boyhood fascination with space which culminated with the first moon landing in 1969. The deliciously enchanting text is complemented by Christian Birmingham's exquisite pastel illustrations, which capture the awe and mystery that the moon had for this small boy. The reader relives the magical evenings when Mark borrowed his father's binoculars to get a closer look at the moon's empty deserts and rocky mountains and wished that one day people would find a way to set foot on its surface. The soft-focused intimacy of the drawings enables us to eavesdrop on a significant period in the author's childhood and share his sense of wonder. At the same time the reader learns a good deal about Apollo 11's journey to the moon through his scrapbook and recollections of those famous television pictures from the early hours of 20th July 1969. Some dramatic double page spreads without text focus on the actual landing and the walk to the Sea of Tranquility. My favourite is the one of the author's dream where he is walking in a space suit on the dusty surface of the moon between Neil Armstrong and Buz Aldrin with the lunar module in the distance.