In the Shadow of the Moon by Amy Cherrix
There are two main men in this book. Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev. I was a little worried about this book after seeing many other reviews say it had mistakes or was biased.
During World War II, Germany, von Braun wanted his technology and rocket development to be used for something more than warfare. He saw the potential for space travel. His fear was that when Germany lost the war, they would destroy all of his work to keep others from accessing it. He decided it would be best to surrender to America and hope they could help him achieve his dream of building a rocket to send humans to the moon. He really was focused on getting to the moon. He didn’t seem to care too much about anything else but that goal. He was willing to work for the government in secret, and he was willing to join the Nazi party to keep his work funded. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what was going on around him at first.
Sergei Korolev was born in the town of Zhitomir in Ukraine. Similar to von Braun, he was obsessed with rockets. Unfortunately for Korolev, he did not have the chance to go to America; he was sent to a gulag, being accused of treason. There was a weird quote about how the author couldn’t understand why Korolev worked for the Soviets. When Stalin summoned him to Moscow and offered him a job, I didn’t find it “difficult to understand why Korolev would have accepted the offer.” I’m sure he was terrified of being sent back to prison. Maybe there were other reasons, maybe he really did just want to work on rockets regardless of the environment, but I’m sure the threat of the gulag was in the back of his mind. He had been so badly hurt in prison that his jaw didn’t open completely, and he had heart problems. I don’t want to make assumptions about this man and his mental health. It was just an odd thing to say. What do you mean, you don’t understand why he accepted the job? Anyway, moving on!
The book follows both of these men and their quest to build a rocket to the moon!
There was a ton that I learned in the book. Not all that surprising, seeing as I knew very little going in. I did know about Laika. I was not happy to read about her again. Poor little puppy. I did not know that von Braun worked with Walt Disney to teach Americans about rockets. It was part of Tomorrowland at Disneyland. You can look up videos of von Braun talking about the rockets on YouTube. That was neat!
There really was so much to learn in this book. I didn’t know that Russia had sent a woman into space in the 60s, while America didn’t until the 80s. I didn’t know Russia sent more dogs into space, but these two lived, and one even went on to have pups. I didn’t know about a lot of the failures both sides were dealing with. I thought the only lives lost were from the Challenger. I didn’t know about Apollo 1. The Soviets also suffered many failures and deaths. But they had a lot of success too. They started off doing some amazing things! The chapter on the moon landing was awesome to read. I was not alive at this time, but reading about so many different people around the world watching this happen was amazing. I felt like I was watching it live, too!
There were a lot of little sidebars with information, either background or extra, to help the reader understand what was going on during this time. I liked that these were included. I know I started the review with talk of mistakes and bias, but I liked this book. I felt like I learned a lot, and I hope to read some more on this part of history. I can’t wait to get this into my students’ hands.
*It was interesting to see what America was willing to do and to hide to gain information and technology. Von Braun was a nazi, like full on nazi. He knew what was going on in a camp near his lab, and he even had people from the camp do labor for his rocket research. America wanted his knowledge, and they were willing to hide as much of his history as possible. He was famous in America, though. He made speeches and was even on TV for Disney’s Tomorrowland. People knew him and loved him.
Korolev was in Russia at this time, and he seemed to be an honest man. When he spoke the truth about a peer, saying that he felt this person was a good man, he was seen as a traitor and sent to a gulag for 6 years. All of his work on the rockets was hidden because the Soviets were worried someone would try to kidnap or kill him. His name wasn’t known until his death.
Four Out of Five Magical Coffee Cups
Literary Coffee 