We Are All Astronauts!

Kate Pankhurst has long been known for her inspirational books championing fantastically great women across the ages and in a wide variety of occupations and fields. Her latest title turns to the fascinating subject of space and the many women, mostly unknown, without whom the human race (and a few animals) would never have made it into space at all.

Unlike her other books, We Are All Astronauts blends true facts within the story of Luna Scope, aged seven-and-a-bit, who is determined to be an astronaut. However, as her Granny reminds her, she needs to know her space stuff before she can blast off on a mission to the stars.

There is so much to read and find in this gorgeous book. Kate has packed each page full of fact after fact, amid glorious colour illustrations as Granny guides Luna across the stars and galaxies.

We learn how astronauts train and prepare for their missions in space and which animals were used in the early days of exploration to test the safety of space travel. (Did you know that fruit flies were actually the first living creatures to reach space?) As we zoom though the cosmos, we explore all the planets in our galaxy and see why Earth is the perfect home for us, so we need to make sure that we all take care of it. There is also a variety of astronaut badges to find throughout the book and the reader will surely discover something new to find on each page on every rereading.

An author’s note in the end pages tells how the book was inspired by the real-life story of the Mercury 13, a group of talented female trainee astronauts in the 1960s who never made it into space because they were women. The unfairness of this and the realisation that even today there is a huge disparity in the astronauts chosen to go into space due to gender, race or disability, made this an important book for her to write.

All children love to dream of going into space and with this perfect introduction for the next generation of space travellers, will love this book too. I certainly did.