Liftoff! How the Apollo Moon Missions Made Alma Thomas’s Art Soar

The artistic process of abstract painter Alma Thomas (1891–1978) comes to light in this smart dual-strand picture book, which interleaves the stories of the Apollo 10 spaceflight and Thomas’s creation of the painting “Snoopy Sees a Sunrise.” Opening language connecting the parallel stories orients around the idea of dawn, establishing the artist’s plans “for something new—a painting about the astronauts and the Moon.” Zipping backward by a year, factual narration shifts to describing the Apollo 10 astronauts’ eight-day trip. This alternating pattern further contextualizes its conjoined subjects, describing Thomas’s brushwork (“Alma’s stripes”) and the astronaut’s televised broadcasts (“You ought to see it up here”). With the help of sprightly digital illustrations—rendered in bright colors with thick brush strokes, redolent of its subject’s work—the stories crescendo with the conclusion of the mission and Thomas’s acclaimed painting, its confluence of art and science creating an ideal STEAM read. Extensive back matter includes more about the topics covered. Ages 6–10. (Nov.)