This fascinating insider account of astronaut training and the transformative experience of traveling to the moon will...
A member of the Apollo 14 mission and the sixth person to walk on the moon chronicles his life experiences leading up to that defining event and how it changed him forever afterward.
With an assist from Mahoney, Mitchell discusses his first solo airplane flight as a young teen, experiences as a Navy combat pilot, his time in Roswell, N.M., amid nuclear testing and the rumored UFO crash, and becoming a NASA astronaut. Following the disastrous Apollo 13 mission, there was plenty of anxiety amid the Apollo 14 mission, but the crew completed all they set out to do and returned safely to Earth. Mitchell returned profoundly moved, the experience prompting him to become a lifelong spiritual seeker. Readers will appreciate his wonderfully detailed account of his astronaut training, spaceflight and moon landing, describing everything from the practical—eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom in space—to the mystical, life-changing experience of gazing at the Earth from afar. The book includes informative sidebars and transcripts of NASA recordings from the Apollo 14 mission.
This fascinating insider account of astronaut training and the transformative experience of traveling to the moon will especially appeal to readers with an interest in astronomy and space travel. (chronology, websites, bibliography) (Memoir. 12-16)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61374-901-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of all things martial will echo his “HOOYAH!”—but the troubled aftermath comes in for some attention too.
Abridged but not toned down, this young-readers version of an ex-SEAL sniper’s account (SEAL Team Six, 2011) of his training and combat experiences in Operation Desert Storm and the first Battle of Mogadishu makes colorful, often compelling reading.
“My experiences weren’t always enjoyable,” Wasdin writes, “but they were always adrenaline-filled!” Not to mention testosterone-fueled. He goes on to ascribe much of his innate toughness to being regularly beaten by his stepfather as a child and punctuates his passage through the notoriously hellacious SEAL training with frequent references to other trainees who fail or drop out. He tears into the Clinton administration (whose “support for our troops had sagged like a sack of turds”), indecisive commanders and corrupt Italian “allies” for making such a hash of the entire Somalian mission. In later chapters he retraces his long, difficult physical and emotional recovery from serious wounds received during the “Black Hawk Down” operation, his increasing focus on faith and family after divorce and remarriage and his second career as a chiropractor.
Fans of all things martial will echo his “HOOYAH!”—but the troubled aftermath comes in for some attention too. (acronym/ordinance glossary, adult level reading list) (Memoir. 12-14)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-01643-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A solid and captivating look at these remarkable pioneers of modern fiction.
The wild freedom of the imagination and the heart, and the tragedy of lives ended just as success is within view—such a powerful story is that of the Brontë children.
Reef’s gracefully plotted, carefully researched account focuses on Charlotte, whose correspondence with friends, longer life and more extensive experience outside the narrow milieu of Haworth, including her acquaintance with the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who became her biographer, revealed more of her personality. She describes the Brontë children’s early losses of their mother and then their two oldest siblings, conveying the imaginative, verbally rich life of children who are essentially orphaned but share both the wild countryside and the gifts of story. Brother Branwell’s tragic struggle with alcohol and opium is seen as if offstage, wounding to his sisters and his father but sad principally because he never found a way to use literature to save himself. Reef looks at the 19th-century context for women writers and the reasons that the sisters chose to publish only under pseudonyms—and includes a wonderful description of the encounter in which Anne and Charlotte revealed their identities to Charlotte’s publisher. She also includes brief, no-major-spoilers summaries of the sisters’ novels, inviting readers to connect the dots and to understand how real-life experience was transformed into fiction.
A solid and captivating look at these remarkable pioneers of modern fiction. (notes and a comprehensive bibliography) (Biography. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-57966-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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