Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon

Written by Catherine Thimmesh

Narrated by Andy Paris

When three heroic men traveled aboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft bound for the moon, the entire world sat glued to their television sets in suspense. But few knew just how much it took to get that far. To put a man on the moon, thousands of people diligently worked behind the scenes. Countless preparations had to be made and no detail, however small, could be overlooked-the lives of the crewmen were at stake. From the seamstresses who wove the multi-layered materials for the spacesuits, to the computer experts who designed and tested the flight software, the combined efforts of many little-known heroes helped make this monumental endeavor a success. Based on NASA transcripts and national archives, this 2007 ALA Best Book for Young Adults by Catherine Thimmesh received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Narrator Andy Paris lends her talents to this triumphant story of the race to the moon. "This beautiful and well-documented tribute will introduce a new generation to that triumphant time."-Kirkus Reviews, starred review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 20, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440716959

Catherine Thimmesh

Catherine Thimmesh is the award-winning author of many books for children, including Girls Think of Everything and Team Moon, winner of the Sibert Medal. Her books have received numerous starred reviews, appeared on best books lists, and won many awards, including the IRA Children's Book Award and Minnesota Book Award. She lives in Minnesota with her family. www.catherinethimmesh.com. 

Reviews for Team Moon

[catfantastic_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent book about the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, from the perspective of not only the astronauts, but the team of 400,000 people working on everything from sewing the suits, to the engineers, to the television broadcasters. Great for children, it is told in an exciting and immediate way, and includes plenty of gorgeous photographs.Thimmesh pulls together a variety of first-hand accounts and relays them in a way that makes the reader feel they are right there, in the midst of the action. But I think Team Moon is also interesting and inspiring for anyone of any age. It's also a great reminder of just how downright cool space exploration is! "They had put man on the moon that day, true; but computers in 1969 barely had the computing power of today's hand-held calculators. So a lot of analysis was done the good old-fashioned way: paper, pencil, and brainpower."

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

No, I did not read every word... I'm just not quite that interested in the subject. But the thing is, I was trying just to page through this for a group read, and I kept getting sucked in to reading more closely. Important, fascinating, beautiful.

[karenball_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great read right now, since our final shuttle mission lifted off July 8th. When most people think of the original moon landing, they think of Neil Armstong and his famous quote as he stepped onto the surface of the moon for the first time: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." But who worked to get the three astronauts there, and how did they do it? Team Moon is the fascinating story of so many different little-known parts of the Apollo missions: the computer programmers and mathemeticians, who worked to foresee and solve problems ahead of time, and to solve the ones no one could foresee as they came up during the mission. Check out the photos of the computers they had to work with, and you'll start to understand why they chose to work with paper and pencil sometimes! There were several hundred testers and seamstresses who worked on developing the right combinations of fabrics and materials for the spacesuits to protect the astronauts. The engineers and chemists who worked on the fuel and engines for the rocket and vehicle design were an integral part of the mission also. There were photographers who trained the astronauts to use the movie and still cameras to capture the first steps on the moon, and there were those who designed the parachutes and those who went out to rescue the astronauts once they landed safely back in the ocean. The photos and layout of this book are outstanding, and it is a fantastic choice for everyone!

[pjw1173 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book that I can see me putting in my classroom library. I have Moon Shot currently and I have seen students spending days admiring each and every non fictional picture and chart. This book contains both informational text and photos that tell the story of how the Apollo 11 mission became a reality.

[newanddifferent · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved this one! The well-written, snappy prose, paired with excellent and relevant photos, tells an engaging story of the Apollo 11 mission as a whole, from dreams to design to success. Provides excellent back matter with related information, resources, and avenues for further exploration.

[kellisingleton · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Team Moon is a Historic nonfiction book written by Catherine Thimmesh. It is about the Apollo 11 flight to the moon and back. It also talks about many of the “challenges” that they faced. The book begins by telling you everything that it took to make the space craft. The Apollo 11 had a nickname, The Eagle. Neil Armstrong and Buzz were the first men to walk on the moon in 1969. During their trip to the moon they had some MAJOR problems; they didn’t know if they would make it home alive. Steven Bales, the mission controller for guidance and navigation did a wonderful job at helping them with their first major problem, “challenge one”. The book also takes you through the countdown of the miles they have left until the reach the moon. The flight direction of “the eagle” was Gene Kranz. Running out of fuel was a main concern to them. They finally arrived back home eight days later.

I would recommend this book to a high school science class. There are several activities that you could teach your students. This book would be great when teaching the solar system. It would also be a great history lesson as well. You could make your students do research and do a time line of the eight days that they were in space.

This book was ok. It taught me a lot that I did not know about the flight to space and back. At first I thought it wasn’t going to be interesting until I kept reading. While reading I would get nervous when I would read about the “challenges” that they faced. I would never be able to do that; I would have a heart attack. But overall, it is a great book for teaching about the Apollo 11.

[mkschoen · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I found this very hard to read. Layout was confusing, I was never really clear what we were talking about or where I was supposed to look on a page. And many pages had white text on grey backgrounds, which I found extremely difficult to read. Switched back and forth betwwen narrator and quotations, but was unclear which was the main text.

[debnance_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

President John F. Kennedy set the goal: put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. America met the goal. But it was with the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people that this goal was met. Team Moon looks behind the act of a man walking on the moon to the work of all the people who got him there and then got him safely back home.

[mmpvppl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really cool story about the building of Apollo 11. I had no idea how much is involved in building, launching, and bringing home a space shuttle.

[michelleramos_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is a very detailed look at all of the people that were involved in the extensive process of having a man land on the moon. Of course there were many people involved, but I had no idea that there were close to 400,000. This book is written very kid friendly, other than the many lists of accronyms, names, and codes.

[jeriannthacker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Story of the Apollo moon landing. Interesting, a little wordy at times, cool pictures.

[abbylibrarian_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This beautiful book gives a play-by-play of the first moon landing with Apollo 11. We've all heard of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. Maybe we've also heard of Michael Collins (the third member of the crew, who flew the ship but did not walk on the moon). But did you have any idea that there were 400,000 other people behind the scenes of the first moon landing? I didn't.

Team Moon goes into detail about problems that the astronauts encountered on their trip and the people who rushed to solve them. It includes information about engineers who had to quickly determine why alarms kept going off in the ship and whether they should abort the moon landing, the people who kept the Australian satellite dish steady through high winds so that the images would reach the public on TV, and many others. Information is also provided about the people who worked developing equipment that would help the astronauts. It tells about the seamstresses that helped put together the space suits, the space suit tester, the people who invented the lunar module (the part of the ship that actually touched down on the moon).

This book is packed full of information, but short chapters and stunning photos (complete with captions) make it a delight to take in. Very cool book.

[maowangvater · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It’s July 1969, moments after the Lunar Module Eagle had separated from the Command Module Columbia, and 33, 500 feet above the surface of the moon. The Eagle is just beginning its decent.

"Suddenly, the master alarm in the lunar module rang out for attention with all the racket of a fire bell going off in a broom closet. “Program alarm,” astronaut Neil Armstrong called from the LM (‘LEM’) in a clipped but calm voice. “It’s a twelve-oh-two.”
…
Translation: We have a problem! What is it? Do we land? Do we abort? Are we in danger? Are we blowing up? Tell us what to do. Hurry!"

The speech for President Nixon to deliver in the event the astronauts died on the moon had already been written. Fortunately, other back-up plans were in place. Back on earth at mission control in Houston, the Flight Controller looked to mission controller for guidance and navigation, who intern was in touch with the computer programmer in the back room, meanwhile the Capsule Communicator (CapCom) recalled a similar alarm in a simulated training mission. The LM’s computer was momentarily too busy. Twenty seconds from the call from Eagle the CapCom relayed the message to proceed with the landing as long as the alarm was not constant. Eleven minutes later Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land a spacecraft on the moon.

The subtitle says it all, 400,000 people were working with the astronauts, everyone in Mission Control, the engineers working for the contractors that built the Eagle, the Columbia and the parachute system that would return them to earth, the computer programmers, the seamstresses who sewed the spacesuits for the moonwalk, and the radio telescope operators in Australia battling 70 mile an hour winds to capture the television signal and transmit it to an anxious planet.

Thimmesh has carefully selected stories of people behind the headlines and presented them in a marvelously illustrated chronicle of the near-crisis by near-crisis events from lift off to splash down during the first moon landing. The Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association awarded the author the 2007 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal for the most distinguished informational book published in English during the preceding year.