Neil Armstrong: First Man on the Moon

July 1, 2019
A panegyric to the "reluctant hero" who first stepped onto the moon's surface. Woolf digs into Armstrong's life from first airplane ride at the age of 5 to his death in 2012, taking some glances behind the scenes but with a focus on heroic exploits during the Korean War, as a test pilot, and in space. The famous line is rendered "That's one small step for [a] man," with a disclaimer, but overall the author tells a sketchy tale with significant details missing--such as any mention of the racist and sexist aspects of this country's early space program. Even the return flight of Apollo 11 is covered in just a timeline and one anticlimactic sentence: "After an uneventful ride back to Earth, the astronauts splashed down southwest of Hawaii." Ho-hum. All or most of the black-and-white illustrations are (poorly) redrawn from photographs; despite inserted wisecracks and actual quotes, they are so lifeless that even a version of the renowned Earthrise has a drab, distant look. A scant handful of further resources and a space-exploration timeline that spans only 1973 to 2015 follow a closing flurry of tributes to Armstrong's achievements and character. Armstrong is definitely a historical figure worth knowing...but the recent spate of more-nuanced and -dramatic accounts of the space program spoil readers for choice, and this doesn't stand out as a first or even second one. Rosy, bland hero worship. (glossary, index) (Biography. 10-12)

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