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Papa Put a Man on the Moon is a delightful picture book by Kristy Dempsey. It puts the huge scope of the Apollo program into the perspective of Marthanne (the author’s mother), who’s growing up in Slater, South Carolina. Marthanne’s father works in the J. P. Stevens textile mill and is one of the workers weaving Beta cloth*.
This material was a key component in the Apollo space suits** used to walk on the moon, other Apollo hardware, and has been used on the space shuttle and ISS. Marthanne is very excited by this, but her father is more sedate with a stoic “just proud to make a living” attitude. This is a secret truth of the Apollo program that this book underscores.
An estimate of 400,000*** men and women worked all over the United States to successfully launch, land on the moon, and return the Apollo astronauts to Earth. Sarah Green’s illustrations are colorful and switch between stylized realism and Marthanne’s more colorful and kid-drawn style imagination.
I like the artwork and it was done quite well, with the exception of the page with Armstrong descending the Lunar Lander’s ladder. This was done in Marthanne’s imagination style, and it just feels off to me. Maybe it’s just the imagined perspective and scale.
Papa Put a Man on the Moon is a reminder to parents that what we see as making a…
