cover image Footprints on the Moon

Footprints on the Moon

Mark Haddon, , illus. by Christian Birmingham. . Candlewick, $16.99 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-7636-4440-6

Originally published in the U.K. in 1996, this spare, emotive story recreates Haddon's (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time ) experience of watching the Apollo 11 landing. Birmingham's (The Snow Queen ) soft-focus, light-infused pictures reveal Haddon's preoccupation with outer space as a boy (he compiles a scrapbook of photos and newspaper clippings, imagines exploring the moon and poses in the snow beside a red, white and blue shirt hanging from a pole—a pretend flag). After staying up to watch the space landing on TV, the boy “went to bed at dawn.... and in his dreams he walked with them.” Together, words and art offer a tribute that is at once personal and universal. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)