Distant Worlds (1932)

 

An early children's science fiction book about spaceflight. 

Borrowing from a book-seller description:

Friedrick Mader, "the German Jules Verne" according to Sam Moskowitz, was a popular author of fantastic romances in post-World War One Germany. DISTANT WORLDS is his only novel translated into English. WUNDERERWELTEN (1911) is a boys' book that "takes its spaceship crew to Mars and finally, at several times the speed of light, to Alpha Centauri, where they explore an Eden-like planet. Its content is quite advanced for 1911.' It was translated into English in 1932.

Google Books summarized it like this: 

"Professor Dr. Heinrich Schulze of Germany, Captain Munchausen of Australia, and Lord Flitmore of England, together with their wives and a company of associates travel around Mars and Saturn in an anti-matter powered space ship. They follow a comet through the asteroid belt and out of the solar system to Alpha Centauri, landing on a planet of that system."

While the illustrations are not really "space art" I have also included a bit of the text so you can get a feel for the technology used.

Mader, Friedrich. Illustrated by Graef, Robert A.  Translated by Shachtman, Max. Distant Worlds: The Story of a Voyage to the Planets. New York: Charles Scribner. (343 p.) 1932. 

Robert Goddard: Father of the Space Age (1963)

 

After a Thanksgiving break I am back with Robert Goddard: Father of the Space Age.  Even if there are not a lot of illustrations of space flight this book was very important to me at the time. I remember finding it in the school library and then getting my own paperback copy through the Scholastic Book Club. It was retitled:  Rocket Genius. It is a basic biography of one of the early American rocket pioneers. He essentially developed the first American liquid fueled rockets. While his worked was not embraced at the time it ended up being important in World War 2. So it made sense to introduce Space Age children to one of the earliest rocket scientists.

Verral, Charles Spain. Illustrated by Frame, Paul. Robert Goddard: Father of the Space Age. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (80 p.) 1963.

Here are a few illustrations from the book:

Undersea Base (1974)

 

So a large change for today, instead of Outer Space books we are going to Inner Space with Undersea Base. I have blogged about Mae Freeman's book Space Base (1974) several times. In it she showed children visiting a space station in the future.  I recently found she had also written a children's book about futurist undersea exploration and children visiting an undersea base in the future. The late 60s and early 70s had an optimism about what might happen in the future and that shows in this lovely book. As a child of that time I remember being a big space flight fan and thinking about living in space as an astronaut and I also had dreams of living under the sea as an aquanaut.

Freeman, Mae. Illustrated by Mardon, John. Undersea Base. New York: Franklin Watts. (64 p.) 1974. 

Judy Space Puzzles (1970s)

 

Here is another quick post for you. Space puzzles! 

I last shared these in 2016 so it is about time to bring them back.

These were classroom puzzles (although they were probably owned by kids at home too). They were mostly for Kindergarten-2nd grade kids and were "educational" as well as fun.  They are labeled as produced by the "Judy" company and were part of a "Space Exploration" series.

I really liked them when I found one. These 11 Judy puzzles are all the ones I was able to chase down. There are several about early space flight and a number about the Moon landing.

This last one is not a Judy puzzle but also wooden

Space Witch (1959)

 

Here is a Halloween space book post for you. I have done posts for Christmas, Easter and Yuri's Night but never one for Halloween.

Space Witch is a pleasant story about a witch who wants to expand her frightening to creatures on other planets. She constructs a "space broom" and a space suit and goes looking for fun and scares. Her big breakthrough was using jet-black magic for fuel. A solution Von Braun had rejected in the early 50s :) 

Freeman, Don. Space Witch. New York: Puffin Books. (48 p.) 1959